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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23690437">The Prince of the Sea and his Child of Fire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineLady91/pseuds/DivineLady91'>DivineLady91</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Glee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Angst, Don't copy to another site, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fairies, Fairy Tale Style, Fairy!Kurt, Fantasy, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Near Death, Non-Graphic Violence, Oral, Romance, Rutting, sprite!Blaine, water sprite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:27:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>42,078</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23690437</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineLady91/pseuds/DivineLady91</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine is a water sprite, prince of the undersea kingdom and sole heir to the throne. Five days away from turning seventeen and his big coronation, he decides to take a journey to the surface, to seek out a legendary flame said to be tended by an evil witch. Instead of a witch, he finds something else entirely ...</p><p>Kurt is a fire fairy, prince of a race of fire fairies and heir to the throne. Five days away from turning seventeen (on the night of a full solar eclipse when he will transform and become king), he sees for the first time in his life a water sprite - a member of a race that he's been raised to hate.</p><p>What will happen when these two mortal enemies fall in love? Is there any way for them to escape destiny and be together?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is inspired by the movie 'The Sea Prince and the Fire Child', which itself has elements of 'Romeo and Juliet' and other tragic love stories in it. However, it isn't a word-for-word retelling. As a child when I first saw the movie 'The Sea Prince and the Fire Child', a lot of it bothered me. There were things that the characters did that I thought were ridiculous, and I didn't like the way the story ended. So this is me fixing all of those problems and telling the story the way I want it :) It's a re-write of another story I wrote for a different pairing a while ago. It's complete, and I will be posting a chapter or two a day. I hope you enjoy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Psst!”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“<em>Psst!!</em>”</p><p>“<em>What</em>!?”</p><p>“Come on! Hurry up! We don’t have all night, you know!”</p><p>“If I can’t keep up on your little adventure, maybe we should both stay home then.”</p><p>“Not a chance. Maybe a tiny bit of jellyfish venom will get you moving.”</p><p>“You … wouldn’t … <em>dare</em>!”</p><p>“Ha! Try me.”</p><p>A face peers around the smooth edge of a wall. Golden eyes shimmering with bioluminescence pierce the surrounding shadows in search of guards.</p><p>“Is the coast clear?” a hushed voice echoes too loudly in the cavernous hall.</p><p>“Shhh!” the first escapee snaps. “Yes, but you’re going to wake the whole castle if you don’t learn how to whisper!”</p><p>“I know that,” the second escapee whines, huddled beside his friend.</p><p>“Then stop talking!” is whispered in a hiss that can be heard for miles.</p><p>“Ugh! I don’t even want to do this, Blaine!”</p><p>“Well, we’re gonna, Trent! And I don’t want to hear another word about it!”</p><p>Blaine grabs his friend’s hand and drags him around the corner. Sticking close to the wall, they sneak down the hall. It’s woefully dark, lit only by a shaft of soft blue light, courtesy of a mob of phytoplankton congregating outside the castle windows. The two friends spiral up and up a rarely used tower of the west wing to a cramped turret obscured by a growth of coral. Out through the open window they swim, throwing anxious looks over their shoulders until the castle is completely out of their sights, and the fugitive water sprites reach the open ocean.</p><p>“We shouldn’t be doing this!” Trent says, tossing a few extra glances back. “If your father finds out we’re gone, he’ll send the royal guard!”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Blaine mutters, “he’ll be super disappointed in me. So what else is new?”</p><p>“Well, maybe. But I don’t need him angry at <em>me</em>, either!” </p><p>Blaine chuckles. “Are you scared of my father, Trent?”</p><p>“Yes. Dreadfully scared. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.”</p><p>Cutting through the water, the two sprites swim, passing schools of fish that decrease in size as they make their way up to the world above – a place no sprite dares to go.</p><p>Trent stops just below, but Blaine breaches the water’s surface and looks around, searching out the fabled lick of fire burning in the darkness of the wood. He narrows his eyelids and peers through the veil formed by the interwoven tree branches and the moonless sky until he spots it - a yellow and orange drop dancing magically on a branch hovering inches above the water.</p><p>Blaine smiles. He reaches down blindly, grabs Trent by the hair, and yanks him up out of the water.</p><p>“Owwww!” Trent groans, but Blaine turns him roughly toward the light flickering in the darkness.</p><p>“Bingo.” Blaine releases his struggling friend and claps him on the back - hard enough to make him cough - before paddling his way toward the fire.</p><p>Trent follows close behind, not wanting to be left alone where any manner of animal can swoop down from the trees and swallow him whole. “Are we <em>really</em> going to do this, Blaine?”</p><p>“Yup,” Blaine answers without turning to look at his frightened friend.</p><p>Trent’s swimming slows as his body trembles. “<em>Why </em>again?”</p><p>“We’ve heard legends about this flame our entire lives! Don’t you finally want to see it? With your own eyes? Once and for all?”</p><p>“No, I don’t. Not particularly.”</p><p>“Why ever not?”</p><p>“You know why!” Trent argues. “They say these woods are <em>haunted</em>!” </p><p>“Of course they do,” Blaine murmurs. “That’s how they keep us in line.” He continues treading water, barely listening. He reaches a log jutting out that blocks his path. On the other side of the log, he sees a small pool surrounding the light, blocked off from the sea. From this distance, he can see the flame just fine. But there’s something else he’s searching for.</p><p>“Blaine!” Trent snaps, realizing he’s being ignored. “Th-they say that the fire is tended by a hideous witch, and that the flame is kept lit by the bones of water sprites who got too close and were eaten alive!”</p><p>Blaine rolls his eyes. “Oh, please! Do you still believe those stories, Trent? Look at yourself! You’re a grown sprite, a member of the royal court, personal advisor to our kingdom’s one and only prince. How can you still believe in ghost stories?”</p><p>“B-because some ghost stories are t-true,” Trent stutters as a chill breeze blows past, whistling through the leaves.</p><p>“Jeez, Trent. If you’re going to be such a baby, why did you even come?”</p><p>“You didn’t give me a choice!” Trent yells, Blaine’s arrogant comment making him forget all thoughts of evil sprite-eating witches. Blaine clamps a hand over Trent’s mouth and holds him still, both sprites staring wide-eyed, willing whatever might be lurking in the shadows to stay there.</p><p>A mouse rustles the underbrush as it scurries through the leaves. An owl shrieks over their heads, causing them to duck, submerge up to their chins. A moment of silence, and then a tortured squeak as the mouse is carried away in the owl’s deadly talons, joining the monstrous bird for dinner.</p><p>Blaine’s hand drops away from Trent’s mouth.</p><p>“B-besides, you n-need me,” Trent stammers unconvincingly. “I’m s-sworn to protect you.”</p><p>“So how come it is I spend so much time saving your sorry behind?” Blaine shakes his head and leaps over the log, landing with a gentle splash in the water on the other side.</p><p>“Wait!” Trent calls. “You saw the fire! Isn’t that enough? Can’t we go home now?”</p><p>“Not yet.”</p><p>“Why?” Trent whisper-yells to the prince’s back. “Why not yet?”</p><p>“Because we got this far. I’m going to go find myself a witch!”</p><p>“No, Blaine!” Trent sinks his fingers into the soaked log, his arms shaking. “No! Come back!”</p><p>Trent’s pleas are lost to the wind and the bowing trees as Blaine swims closer and closer to the crackling flame. The fire lures him to it. It sings him a song both beautiful and heartbreaking. It fills his eyes and his mind with its music. It leads him from the safety of the water to its light.</p><p>Blaine has seen hot things before, in places beneath the ocean where volcanoes pour their lava into the water. Beneath the sea, it blinks red for an instant, then turns hard and black forever.</p><p>But this flame has a soul. It has <em>life.</em></p><p>It wants Blaine to become a part of it.</p><p>He reaches for it, the heat drying his skin even though he’s nowhere near close enough to touch it.</p><p>“Blaine!” Trent continues to yell, but Blaine doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about friends or family or life or his kingdom beneath the sea, as long as he has this flame in front of him.</p><p>Singing him lullabies with its mystical voice.</p><p>Something steps out from behind the fire and blocks his view. A sardonic, “Hey!” gets locked in his throat when he sees a pale body materialize. Blaine has sense enough to drop down into the water, but he keeps his eyes glued to the spot where a figure dances, twirling on tip-toes, arms waving in the air, feeding the fire with petals and leaves until the light dances with him, higher and higher, touching the sky.</p><p>Blaine squints against the blazing light so he can see the figure more clearly.</p><p>His mouth drops open.</p><p>“A fairy!” he breathes, watching as it twirls with eyes closed, fragile wings of silver fanning the flame, turning pink as they catch the light. The fairy faces the fire, singing (and Blaine now realizes that it is this fairy’s voice he was hearing – high and otherworldly, carried on the wind) and Blaine dares to emerge once again.</p><p>The fairy seems about Blaine’s age, and has a head of brown hair – the shade of autumn chestnuts and turning leaves. He is shirtless, the muscles of his back throwing shadows back and forth over his smooth, pastel skin. The play of shadows fascinates Blaine, as does the line of his spine – so straight and so strong, probably earned by hours of flying. Blaine sighs. What it must feel like to fly – to be free to travel the skies and into the clouds, to leave the world and all of your responsibilities behind.</p><p>Responsibilities that Blaine feels pile on top of him every day, more and more, threatening to crush him dead before he even has the chance to live.</p><p>Sea King at only seventeen.</p><p>The thought leaves its bitter tang on his tongue.</p><p>Some sprites would see it as the ultimate honor, but for Blaine it’s a trap. Which is why he took this trip to the surface – his one and only trip, since the moment he is bestowed the mantle of king, he will never be allowed to leave the sea. Not that sprites actually can leave. His own father, the most powerful creature below the waves, has spent an eternity under the water, and to Blaine’s knowledge, has never once been on land.</p><p>Never once looked up at the sky.</p><p>Blaine’s father didn’t have dreams. Or if he did, he stopped dreaming them long ago.</p><p>The fairy stops singing. He turns his head to the side, ears pricking up at a faint sound. Blaine drops beneath the surface before the fairy’s eyes sweep his way, sighing in relief that he managed to get away before he could be spotted. He peeks up, letting the tension of the water hold him under as long as it can before he breaks through, but the fairy is gone.</p><p>Blaine turns his head side to side, frantically trying to find the mystical being. He goes still and holds his breath, waiting for the fairy to emerge, but there is no sign of him. He couldn’t have been a hallucination, could he? A trick of the light?</p><p>No.</p><p>He was <em>real.</em> </p><p>He drew Blaine out of the water and led him here. He may be made of magic, but that hypnotic creature was definitely real.</p><p>Blaine creeps up higher. He looks into the fire, but the fairy dancing around it has disappeared.</p><p>“Hey!” he calls out. “Fairy! Where are you?”</p><p><em>“Blaine!”</em> he hears Trent call, trying to keep his volume low but on the verge of panic. <em>“What are you doing!?”</em></p><p>Blaine waves him off. He doesn’t need Trent scaring the fairy away. He wants to coax the fairy back out and then hide again. He needs to see that vision once more before he leaves and never returns.</p><p>“Fairy!” he yells, braving a move closer to the flame. “Hey, fairy!”</p><p>The flame, all but forgotten by the brazen sprite, flashes brightly in Blaine’s eyes, filling the cove around them with its radiance. Blaine screams, throwing his arms up to protect his face, but the light endures, growing brighter. It turns white, breaking through every gap, weeding into every space. Blaine is blinded, knocked hard into the water, and sinks like a stone.</p><p>“Blaine!” Trent calls from his hiding place behind the log. “Blaine!”</p><p>When the flash disappears, Trent looks into the secluded pool, but the prince is nowhere to be seen.</p><p>“Blaine!”</p><p>Trent throws himself over the log and into the water, heedless of the fairy or the fire, and swims down with all speed to the spot he last saw his friend.</p><p>From behind fire, back to being a softly crackling flame, the fairy peeks his head out and watches the two figures dive beneath the inky water.</p><p> ***</p><p>“Blaine!” Trent turns a full circle, alarmed at being in this strange water alone. It’s too dark, too quiet, brimming with some kind of enchantment that Trent feels prickling along his skin. “Blaine! Where are you? Blaine!”</p><p>He spots the prince’s limp body below him, falling through the water, heading down to a trench – a black, bottomless void cut into the ocean floor. Faster Blaine falls, his unconscious body pulled by denser water. Trent swims at full speed after him, beating his arms against the water, trying to keep up. Trent gains on him when Blaine slows, reaching out an arm to grab him, but Blaine swirls out of reach as a current sweeps him away, dragging him further under and <em>fast</em>. Trent kicks his legs furiously, feeling the invisible pull the nearer they get to the gaping hole, as if hands are reaching for them … icy fingers closing around them ...</p><p>“Blaine!” Trent screams, putting on a burst of energy, a last desperate effort that will either save Blaine or doom them both.</p><p>But it seems that whatever god protects water dwellers is siding with them today. The current stops dead and Trent grabs the sea prince under the arms, kicking with all his might to take them far from the fissure.</p><p>“Urgh! I’ve got you, Blaine!” he says as he fights up through the water, heading back in the direction of their underwater kingdom. “Don’t worry, your highness! I’ll get us home!”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Kurt? Kurt, what in the world was that?” A fairy dressed in a gossamer gown of pale gold and followed by a trail of pink effervescence hurtles through the air toward the cove, her voice ringing like a crystal bell, cutting cleanly through the night. “Kurt! Kurt! Where are you? Are you okay?”</p><p>Kurt rolls his eyes as his younger sister alights on the branch beside him. She had just learned that sparkle trick and now she was overdoing it. She’ll have every hawk and owl in the forest chasing after her, looking to make a meal of her, and he’ll have the misfortune of having to save her.</p><p>“Yes,” Kurt answers in a pacifying, singsong voice, “I’m fine. But aren’t <em>you</em> supposed to be asleep? You have lessons in the morning.”</p><p>“I was watching you from my bedroom window,” Rachel replies, making a face at her silly brother, “like I always do. <em>Y</em><em>ou</em> know that.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Kurt says with a heavy sigh, “I know that.”</p><p>“Besides,” Rachel continues, not noticing her brother’s exasperation, “the way the flame flashed white like that, I’m amazed a whole regiment of the queen’s army isn’t down here to check that you haven’t screwed up.”</p><p>Kurt balls his hands into fists and squeezes tight, counting down from ten in his head in order to stay calm. He doesn’t want to snap at his sister. She’s not <em>trying</em> to be insulting. It just happens to be a talent of hers. In reality, this is the way she shows that she cares.</p><p>By being a humongous pain in the neck.</p><p>Still, Kurt sometimes wishes that his sister would care a little less.</p><p>“Yes, well, thank heavens I haven’t messed up too badly yet,” Kurt says, his sarcastic tone flying completely over her head. “But don’t you think you should be heading back now? It’s not good for you to be about at this hour of the night. Mother will worry if she finds you out of bed.”</p><p>Rachel blows a frustrated breath between pursed lips. “I’m fourteen years old! I’m not a child anymore!” (Kurt bites his tongue hard to keep from saying all the things crossing his mind while his sister rants on.) “And besides, I <em>am</em> a princess, and will become keeper of the flame during the night when you are crowned king. That’s in <em>five days</em>!”</p><p>“Yes, it is.” <em>And thank you so much for reminding me.</em> Kurt drops down on the branch beside the flame that is his charge - that <em>has</em> been his responsibility for the last fourteen years. Ever since his wings could carry him, he had been given the task of watching the Eternal Flame. His mother, the Queen of the Fire Fairies, watches the flame by day. It is a necessary duty that only a high-ranking member of the royal family can perform.</p><p>Kurt, heir to the throne when he turns seventeen, will become king and take over for his mother, leaving Rachel to guard the flame by night.</p><p>An eternity of <em>this</em>, only during the day instead of at night.</p><p>Kurt could hardly wait.</p><p>“Though I don’t see how I can.” Rachel sits beside her brother, sounding distinctly downhearted. “I don’t know how to tend the fire the way you and Mother do. You’ve had <em>years</em> of practice. You and the flame are practically one, closer than you and I even. And I …” She tuts her tongue and shakes her head, her brown locks brushing her rosy cheeks. “I’m going to be a failure as a princess … even more so than <em>you</em>.”</p><p>Kurt huffs and scoots away. Rachel sighs, her wings drooping, her body deflating with sorrow. Kurt eyes his sister, ready to send the wicked menace on her way, but as she sinks deeper into her own ridiculous despair, he can’t help the small smile starting on his lips.</p><p>She may be a menace, but she’s <em>his</em> menace. And he loves her dearly.</p><p>“Come on, you little pest.” Kurt flutters his wings and rises to his feet, hooking a hand beneath Rachel’s arm and lifting her up to join him. “Pay close attention. I’ll show you how it’s done.”</p><p>***</p><p>Rays of morning sun start as pinpricks on the horizon, but in no time they bathe the cove in golden light. Kurt yawns, twirling on his toes, stoking the flame higher to greet the dawn, and scowling at Rachel, who fell asleep in a cozy nest of grass hours ago. He yawns again, <em>loudly</em> to disturb her. It doesn’t have the desired effect. But when, in her sleep, she yawns back, he smiles. He can’t stay mad at her, even if he wants to. Even if he <em>deserves</em> to. He could never truly be angry with his sister. The closest to his age of all their sisters, she is the only fairy in his life that he can call <em>friend</em>, even if she is an annoying, obnoxious beast.</p><p>The sunlight races across the water to meet him and he knows at any moment <em>she</em> will appear. A shadow sweeps over their heads, circling once before landing effortlessly on the branch beside him. Kurt stops his tending and stares in awe of her.</p><p>She may be his mother, but in her regal glory, crowned by the morning sun, she’s a sight to behold.</p><p>“Good morning, Mother,” he says, bowing low to the fairy whose body shrinks before his eyes. Queen Elizabeth is a fairy of exceptional beauty - bright blue eyes the color of cornflowers, long brown hair that hangs down past her waist, and alabaster skin - one of the greatest gifts she bestowed upon her son.</p><p>”Good morning, my son,” his mother returns, resting a hand on the crown of Kurt’s head. “I see you’ve had an eventful night.”</p><p>Kurt’s eyes pop open, the color draining from his cheeks as he stares into his mother’s face. <em>She knows,</em> he thinks. <em>She knows about the intruders – the </em><em>sprite</em><em>s from under the sea. The </em><em>sprite</em><em> with the glowing g</em><em>olden</em><em> eyes</em><em>…</em></p><p>“Uh … eventful, Mother?” Kurt stumbles, not sure how his mother will react to knowing there were sprites in the cove – and that he let them escape with their lives.</p><p>At least, he hopes they had, that that beautiful sprite who had the audacity to stare at him, open-mouthed like a trout, was well.</p><p>Kurt swallows hard as he waits for his mother’s response. She is a fair and kind queen – most of the time. But being a fairy, even one imbued with tremendous magic that allows her to change size and shape at will, she can only express one emotion fully at a time.</p><p>When his mother becomes wrathful, the whole of Earth trembles in fear.</p><p>But Queen Elizabeth only smiles sweetly at her son.</p><p>“Your sister.” She gestures toward the fairy sleeping in the dappled sunlight. “She came down to bother you again, I see.”</p><p>“Rachel?” he squeaks, close to fainting away in shock. “Oh … yes. She’s nervous about learning to command the flame. I taught her a few steps, but then she fell asleep <em>the little snipe</em>.”</p><p>“She’s a talented fairy for her age but not quite so dedicated as you. If she would stop bothering you at night, maybe she could stay awake for her lessons during the day and catch up,” his mother says with a lighthearted chuckle.</p><p>“Yes,” Kurt agrees, nervously nodding his head, “but it was alright. Her visit broke up the … uh … monotony.” Kurt’s heart races, and he knows that his mother, with her immense power, can sense it. She can sniff out a lie for miles and Kurt has never been good at keeping secrets, especially from his mother. She tilts her head as she looks at him, her brow furrowing.</p><p>“Shall I take her back to the palace for you?” Kurt asks, hoping to sidetrack his clever mother.</p><p>Queen Elizabeth narrows her eyes and stares at him, a frown curling the edges of her delicate pink mouth.</p><p>“No,” she decides, smiling again as she begins her dance around the flame. “I’ll let her rest here. When she wakes up, she’ll start her lessons. Why don’t you return to the palace and get some rest?”</p><p>Kurt bows again, sighing his relief softly in the hopes that his mother won’t hear. “Thank you, Mother.”</p><p>“You are welcome, my love.”</p><p>Kurt turns his back to the fire, feeling its heat escape him as he starts to fly away. He spins once he’s in the air, gazing down at the cove, his mother and sister, and the pool where the two uninvited sprites had snuck up on him the night before.</p><p>What were they doing there?</p><p>What did they have planned for him?</p><p>To his knowledge, there haven’t been sprites above water anywhere near the kingdom on the fire fairies since before he was born.</p><p>Why now?</p><p>He’s soon to become king. Did their visit have anything to do with that?</p><p>Kurt gasps. <em>Were they assassins, sent to kill him before he could take the throne!?</em></p><p>Kurt sputters a laugh thinking about how the sprite with the golden eyes had called out to him:</p><p><em>‘Fairy! Hey, fairy!’</em> </p><p>Assassins - he thinks not. Not unless they are truly lousy at their trade.</p><p>They were curious about him. Curious as he is now.</p><p>Kurt had always been told tales of water sprites who lured unwitting fire fairies to the water’s edge and then drowned them. But the sprites he saw didn’t look like they meant him any harm. One seemed afraid and the other … the other was <em>captivating</em>.</p><p>Kurt only knows what he’s heard and, now, what he’s seen, but it’s still so confusing. He’s not sure what to think. What if they come back? What should he do then?</p><p>He knows what he’s supposed to do, but he doesn’t think he can turn them over to the palace guards.</p><p>And he definitely doesn’t think he can kill them.</p><p>He flutters back down to the log and sits. He watches his mother dance, envious of her beauty and her grace. So many times he’s felt awkward tending the flame. His feet don’t know the steps as well as hers do, even after many years of practice. His arms do not bend as smoothly. Hers she can curve like a petal, while his are all angles like a thorn.</p><p>But he’ll have a lifetime to perfect his technique.</p><p>Longer than a lifetime. An eternity.</p><p>“Mother?” Kurt asks, swinging his legs back and forth, careful not to touch the water. “May I ask you a question?”</p><p>“Of course,” Elizabeth says, not halting her steps nor her song.</p><p>“Tell me again, please, why we do not interact with those who live beneath the sea?”</p><p>Elizabeth’s dance ceases.</p><p>Not a favorable sign.</p><p>Kurt holds his breath.</p><p>“We just <em>don’t</em>, my son,” Elizabeth answers, shrugging the question off and starting again.</p><p>“I know …” Kurt ventures forward boldly with his question while his brain screams for him stop “… but <em>why</em> don’t we?”</p><p>Elizabeth halts again and Kurt prepares to retract his question, apologize profusely.</p><p>And fly as fast as he can for home.</p><p>“Why are you asking me this?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him. “Have you seen one?”</p><p>“No, my queen!” Kurt says, leaping anxiously from his seat. She says nothing, her eyes boring into him, trying to unearth the truth. He presses his knees together to keep his body from shaking. “I swear!” he lies. “I have seen nothing! I’m simply curious.”</p><p>Kurt can’t contain his trembling, a combination of excitement, exhaustion, and fear seeping into every muscle of his body and fighting for control. Seeing those emotions swirl in her son’s eyes - a well built from the preparations of the past few weeks as he moves toward the greatest transition of his life - Elizabeth takes pity on her son.</p><p>“My poor child!” She reaches out a hand and pets his cheek. “Look at you! You are so tired! So worried about such trivial and unimportant things!”</p><p>Kurt relaxes. His mother is evading his question, but that’s fine. He prefers her avoidance over her anger. Or her disappointment - both of which he rarely sees. Besides, there are other ways to find out the answers.</p><p>“Yes, Mother. I am tired,” he says, yawning for good measure.</p><p>“I thought so.” She continues her dancing. “Go back to the palace and get straight into bed.”</p><p>“I will,” Kurt says. He catches his mother long enough to kiss her on the cheek, then takes to the air, climbing high until the cove is out of sight and he can see the ocean stretching out from the land. Somewhere beneath the water live colonies of creatures and animals he has never seen, things he couldn’t possibly imagine.</p><p>Somewhere beneath the water is the sprite with the golden eyes.</p><p>Kurt recalls his face - his open, startled expression; his eyes with their soft light glowing from within; raven curls framing olive skin. The sprite didn’t seem dangerous and yet Kurt tried to burn him. His heart freezes with the shame of it – a wash of regret that weighs him down and almost drops him from the sky. Kurt can only hope that he didn’t kill him … and that he will find a way to return.</p><p>Kurt needs to see him again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Blaine! Wake up!” Trent pleads to his prince’s unconscious face. After hours of swimming, Trent - physically and emotionally drained, his energy reserves tapped - begins to lose hope. Blaine is still breathing but he hasn’t woken, hasn’t blinked, hasn’t moved for hours, not even in the ways someone normally does while they sleep. </p><p>And Blaine is a notorious sleep talker.</p><p>The thin, sensitive skin of Blaine’s eyelids has been stained black with ash, and a larger, angry-red burn marks his brow, but otherwise he seems uninjured. Trent looked Blaine’s body over as soon as they were far enough away from that accursed cove to risk stopping, trying to find any other burns on his skin, but there aren’t any.</p><p>Trent isn’t a doctor, but he takes that to mean that whatever is plaguing Blaine is happening <em>inside</em> his body.</p><p><em>Perhaps he’s enchanted! </em>he thinks. <em>Perhaps that fairy put him under a spell! Or maybe he was a witch! A powerful witch, and now Blaine has been cursed to sleep for the rest of his life!</em></p><p>“Please!” Trent cries, terrified that he’s lost his best friend forever. “Wake up, Blaine!”</p><p>Trent swims all day, stopping from time to time to check on his prince and to rest, keeping Blaine to the parts of the ocean untouched by daylight. Daylight in any form will hurt a sprite, but exposure to direct daylight out of water will kill them. By late afternoon, Trent finally makes his way back to the castle. He miraculously avoids being seen and sending up any sort of alarm. He hides with Blaine in the garden beneath the splayed fingers of a yellow Elkhorn coral, blocked from the view of passersby and the castle windows above.</p><p>“Blaine, I need you to wake up,” Trent says, his voice wavering as despair takes over. “You’re my best friend. Besides, I don’t want to go to your father and tell him his only son is dead.” Trent withers at the thought. “You know he’s going to kill me, too.”</p><p>Trent bends over and rests his ear on Blaine’s chest in search of a heartbeat. It’s there, and it’s strong, but that might not be enough to counter that blasted fairy’s magic. Trent doesn’t know. Very little is known about the fire fairies above except they’re evil, and not to be trusted under any circumstances. But what else is there that needs to be known?</p><p>“Please, Blaine,” he mutters, tears starting in his eyes. “Get up … <em>please</em>, get up.”</p><p>Trent hears a cough … then a huff … then a snort. He looks up to see his friend’s eyelids struggle open, weakly parting, unfocused eyes searching his face.</p><p>“What are you going to do next?” Blaine asks in a raspy voice. “Profess your undying love to me?”</p><p>Trent feels a rush of unabashed joy for a single second before anger sets in.</p><p>“You <em>jerk</em>!” Trent snaps, pushing away from Blaine. “What’s wrong with you?”</p><p>“Awww, admit it …” Blaine sits up, pressing a hand to his spinning head “… you were worried about me.”</p><p>“I was worried about being ground into chum and fed to the sharks, that’s all I was worried about.” Trent rises to his feet and brushes off his pants, offering Blaine a hand up regardless of his anger. “What happened to you? I thought you were dead!”</p><p>“I … I was knocked out cold, I guess. Nothing more.”</p><p>“So you’re not going to grow wings or burst into flames then?”</p><p>Blaine snickers. “No. None of that,” he says, but subtly peeking at his back to make sure.</p><p>“Great. That’s just great. Well, back to business as usual, I guess.”</p><p>“Guess so.”</p><p>“By the way, your royal <em>ass-ness</em>, you are officially late for another war meeting.”</p><p>“Wha---?” Blaine brushes at his clothes, grimacing at the scorch marks curling the hem of his pants. He looks up, peering at the position of the light in the water, the direction of the current. He slaps a palm to his forehead. “Aw, crap!” he groans, half out of pain and half out of irritation. He scrambles out from under the coral, feet pushing into the wet sand as he propels himself forward, kicking up clouds in his wake. He circles around the castle, heading for the entrance. “Couldn’t you have gotten us back here any faster?” he yells at Trent, clambering behind him, fighting to keep up.</p><p>“Maybe I <em>could</em> have gotten here faster if I had dropped the <em>dead weight </em>I was dragging, you dugong’s behind!”</p><p>Blaine grins at his friend’s comment as they backtrack through the hallways, taking the same path they had earlier, dashing through the maze of corridors till they get to the main hall, feet sliding across the slick floors. Blaine rounds the corner to the war room, continuing on alone (which he wouldn’t normally but he owes Trent one), stopping at the door and straightening what is left of his singed pants. He doesn’t have time to race back to his room and grab his royal sash not to mention a shirt, so shirtless and unadorned will have to do. It’s a serious breach in protocol (or so he’s been told numerous times) but one good thing will come from that.</p><p>His dad will hate it.</p><p>Blaine can hear voices from the war room echo out into the hallway before he enters.</p><p>“The situation is getting serious. We should attack <em>now</em>before anyone gets hurt!”</p><p>“I agree! We must move quickly! Take them by surprise! We cannot delay any longer!”</p><p>“General, with all due respect, we cannot go to war over an isolated incident! That will cause far more trouble, and <em>damage</em>, than it’s worth!”</p><p>“We’re not talking about an isolated incident. It seems an army of jellyfish attacked the outlying area a full moon ago, my king. And there are reports that a larger army is amassing west of the whale graveyard.”</p><p>“Send an envoy. Try to reason with them first! Perhaps your son could …”</p><p>“Jellyfish are <em>brainless</em>! They cannot be reasoned with!”</p><p>“If they can organize forces and mobilize, they can most definitely be reasoned with!”</p><p>“The outlying area … the whale graveyard … those are fairly remote areas to be building an army and launching an attack. Do we have any idea <em>why</em> they would choose there?”</p><p>“It’s not heavily guarded and …”</p><p>The guard at the entrance clears his throat when Blaine enters, wincing at the sight of Blaine’s blackened eyes and ruined pants.</p><p>“Presenting His Royal Highness, Prince Blaine!”</p><p>Blaine barely makes it a foot through the doorway when the entire assemblage stops cold, turns in his direction, and stares open-mouthed. His father, the massive black figure at the far end of the room, revolves around slowly and to dramatic effect. The oldest among the water sprites, he fills the room from nearly floor to ceiling. His once pale skin now an oily pitch, he absorbs every inch of light in the room, making it seem darker than it really is. Unlike other water sprites, he’s developed thick, rugged tentacles from years of scouring the ocean floor and rarely swimming. His eyes, once golden like Blaine’s, have become large yellow discs with no discernible pupils. He’s a fearsome monster to behold, the leviathan of nightmares and legends.</p><p>And Blaine gets to call him <em>father</em>.</p><p>The Great Sea King takes one look at his son and closes his yellow eyes in disgust.</p><p>“Leave us,” he says, gesturing with his tentacles to those gathered around the room.</p><p>Without a word, the entire council stands and leaves, eyes adverted as they pass the sprite their king shows so much disdain for.</p><p>“Close the door,” the king commands. The heavy door closes. Blaine and his father stand on opposite ends of the room - alone.</p><p>Blaine steps forward, back straight, shoulders square, head high – as much the countenance of royalty as he can muster. But when his father opens his eyes again, he is unimpressed by his son’s posturing.</p><p>“Father,” Blaine starts, clasping his hands behind his back to stop their shaking, “I apologize for being late, but I …”</p><p>“Look at you,” his father sneers, addressing his son with a grimace. “Look at your clothes, your face. You are a mess, and late to yet another important meeting.” The king turns his back on his son, staring at the wall behind him. “You make a poor prince. What sort of king are you going to be? You are a disgrace.”</p><p>Blaine glowers at his father, for all the good his sour face does when his father refuses to even look at him.</p><p>“If I’m such a disgrace, then don’t make me king,” Blaine says bitterly, disguising the hurt in his voice.</p><p>“If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t,” his father says, sighing heavily from the burden of his troublesome son. “We are done here. You may go.”</p><p>Blaine jerks back. In his father’s presence less than five minutes and already dismissed. Must be some new record. A younger Blaine would have apologized, fallen on his knees and begged for his father’s forgiveness, begged to be given another chance, but this more jaded Blaine knows better. Even at his best, Malek, the King of the Sea, has never seen any worth in his only son. So Blaine simply turns on his heel and storms out of the room.</p><p>His face burns bright with embarrassment, but he no longer cares who sees him. It’s no secret what his father thinks of him.</p><p>He only prays his father’s opinion isn’t contagious.</p><p>He expects to find Trent loitering in the hallway waiting for him. He hopes to find no one. He needs a moment to himself to remember why it is he doesn’t take to the waves and swim as far away from the palace and his father as he can.</p><p>One reason, he knows, is because there isn’t anywhere in the sea he can go that his father can’t find him.</p><p>But also because Blaine wants to be a good king. He does have opinions about how to handle the ravaging jellyfish hordes that have been attacking unchecked for months, but his father doesn’t want to hear them.</p><p>His father wants Blaine punctual, but mostly quiet at all times.</p><p>That’s not something Blaine is prepared to do, not when it comes to the safety of his kingdom.  </p><p>That will all change when Blaine becomes king. He’ll call the shots and will answer to no one. Regardless of his immaturity at times, Blaine loves his people. He loves the ocean and every creature in it. It would be nice if, before he’s given the crown, he could make his father see him for the king he will be, not the disobedient prince Malek thinks he is.</p><p>If he could only find a way …</p><p>“Running away from responsibility again, Blaine?” a snide voice asks from the shadows.</p><p>“I’m not running away from anything,” Blaine growls, turning to face the eavesdropper leaning against the wall, legs crossed at the ankles, looking exceptionally comfortable hiding in the dark. It’s his glowing blue eyes Blaine sees first, then his golden mane of hair, and that knowing grin that Blaine so often wants to smack off his face. “Maybe you should stop hanging around where you aren’t welcome.”</p><p>“My father is still the king’s steward,” Hunter says, “so technically, I <em>am</em> welcome here.”</p><p>“<em>Your father</em> is welcome here,” Blaine sneers, “and just barely. You, on the other hand, are nothing. You have no rank and are therefore <em>unwelcome</em>. Permission to remain in the palace has been granted solely as a courtesy to <em>him, </em>but it can be repealed.”</p><p>“You know,” Hunter continues, ignoring the prince’s remarks, “you look like you’ve been under a lot of stress lately.” His eyes sweep down Blaine’s body, stopping on the scorched portions of his pants and traveling up to the burn on his forehead, staring with a curious eyebrow raised. “If you can’t handle the numerous responsibilities of being appointed Sea King, I would be more than happy to take it off of your shoulders, <em>Prince</em> Blaine. All you need do is ask.”</p><p>Blaine rolls his eyes at this overconfident sprite who used to be a dear friend – a long time ago before a jealous and ambitious Hunter discovered he could be next in line for the throne if anything unfortunate happened to Blaine and his father turned the position down.</p><p>“No, thank you,” Blaine says, sauntering away. “I’ve got it covered.” He stops mid-step and turns, walking back toward the cocky sprite staring daggers at Blaine’s back. “And by the way … you may want to start packing your bags, because the second I get that crown on my head, you’re out of here.”</p><p>Blaine pats Hunter’s cheek condescendingly, then walks lazily off to his room. Hunter watches Blaine swagger down the hallway and out of sight, laughing to himself.</p><p>“We’ll see,” Hunter mutters, catching a glimpse of the morose Sea King before heading in the opposite direction. “We’ll see.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kurt wants nothing else in the world but to fall straight to sleep. Every inch of his body, every crumb of his thoughts cries out for it. But it’s elusive, evades him at every turn. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees the water sprite fly backward, flame scorching his eyes, tongues of it curling at his skin. He hears the sprite’s friend yell out, sees him plunge into the water after him, trying to rescue him. But Kurt fears it was all for naught. He knows fire. On numerous occasions, he’s seen what it can do, how destructive it can be.</p><p>Kurt knows it was more than likely too late.</p><p>The stunning creature with the luminescent golden eyes is gone from this world, never to return.</p><p>And it’s all Kurt’s fault.</p><p>He falls to sleep once he comes to terms with that and cries himself out, but wakes a few short, far-from-peaceful hours later, his pillow soaked in tears.</p><p>Night has only begun to touch the crest of the hills when Kurt departs the palace and heads for the cove. Even though in his head he’s convinced the sprite is dead, his heart holds out hope a bit longer. Either way, he needs to know once and for all.</p><p>He can’t wait any longer.</p><p>All he can do is tend the flame and hope the sprite returns. Or maybe his friend. <em>Someone</em> who can tell Kurt what happened after they disappeared into the sea.</p><p>Kurt circles the cove once, letting the blanket of night fall further before he approaches the flame.</p><p>“You are back early, my son,” Elizabeth says when she sees Kurt return. “It is not yet completely dark. The gold of sunset still lights the horizon. You need your rest, especially now.”</p><p>“I know, Mother,” Kurt says, trying hard to hide his red-rimmed eyes and his puffy, tear-stained cheeks. “But I could not sleep, what with the eclipse coming soon.”</p><p>“Yes.” Elizabeth smiles proudly at the young prince. “You’ll finally come of age and you will be <em>king</em>, as you were always meant to be.” Elizabeth bends over and looks deep into her son’s blue eyes. “Oh, my darling. Have you been crying?”</p><p>“M-maybe a little,” Kurt stammers, biting his lip, praying his mother doesn’t ask what he’s been crying about. There are no words to explain why he’s weeping over the fate of a water sprite - one of their mortal enemies.</p><p>“Oh, dearest!” She takes him under her arm. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but you’ll do a wonderful job as king! I have complete faith in you!”</p><p>“You … you do?” Kurt asks, surprised. </p><p>“Of course! I always have!” she says, squeezing him tightly. Kurt gazes at his mother’s face, at her rosy cheeks and her pale skin that absorbs the very essence of the fire and lights her from within. His mother’s assumptions at his capabilities are definitely a relief … but how capable is he really when he’s failed what could be seen as his first unofficial test as a ruler? “Now, have a good evening, my love, and think no more about it. The eclipse will come soon enough. Enjoy your last few nights of freedom while you can.”</p><p>Kurt smiles at his mother when she kisses him on the forehead, the fire from her lips leaving a mark on his skin like a star. But in his chest, his heart cracks.</p><p>If this is freedom, then becoming king will be a prison, and he doesn’t want it.</p><p>His mother lets him go and takes off into the sky, noticing nothing out of the ordinary about her eldest son. He watches her leave with tears in his eyes, trails of golden light following her as she heads home to the palace. When she is gone from sight and he is utterly alone, he slumps into a heap and begins to cry, tears streaming down his face and falling into the water as the bright orange sun sets.</p><p> ***</p><p>Blaine sits on the finger of a sea fan, far above the highest tower of the castle, within inches of where the rays of sunlight reach. He stays in that spot for the remainder of the day, watching the light retreat, leaving him alone as nighttime falls. It seemed like only a few hours ago he was above the surface, hunting down the answer to the greatest mystery in their kingdom - his final adventure before he becomes king.</p><p>And now, he’s giving himself a second chance.</p><p>He doesn’t take Trent along with him this time. His poor friend needs his rest. Blaine owes Trent his life, and this is how he’s chosen to repay him, by not dragging him along on anymore foolish and possibly deadly escapades. Besides, Blaine wants the chance to be alone with the fairy – to watch him from a distance, perhaps even to talk to him if he plucks up the courage.</p><p>Blaine leaves as soon as the sea loses light. He takes a different path to the surface but breaks through the water in roughly the same spot. The cove looks the same, as if time had stopped when he left it - the same dark, foreboding trees; the same pool of still water; the flame flickering in its place on the branch. But instead of singing this time, Blaine is beckoned by the sound of crying.</p><p>Blaine follows the sound back to the log that blocks access to the small pool and there he is – the same fairy, lying across the low-hanging branch, weeping into the water. Blaine hears the sadness in his voice, feels it seeps into his chest, and his heart tightens.</p><p>He doesn’t want the fairy crying. He’s far too divine a being to cry.</p><p>Blaine considers calling out to him, but he doesn’t want to frighten the fairy. His first instinct is to swim carefully up to him, but there are too many obstacles barring his way. He starts climbing up onto the log, but he catches his foot on a knot and falls face first into the water. The sound of splashing captures Kurt’s attention and his head pops up. He rises to his feet and runs to hide behind the flame.</p><p>Blaine immediately drops down into the water for protection.</p><p>“Please!” he calls out. “Please, don’t burn me again!”</p><p>Kurt gasps at the water sprite’s plea.</p><p><em>Burned him</em><em>!</em>Kurt thinks<em>. I </em><em>did </em><em>burn him</em><em>!</em><em> But </em><em>… </em>Kurt peeks through the flame to get a better look<em> … from what I can see, </em><em>he looks fine. What if it’s a trick?</em></p><p>Kurt wants to know more, find out this sprite’s intentions, but he needs to stay on his guard. He creeps out from behind the fire, only showing himself halfway. “Did I … did I really burn you?”</p><p>“Only a little,” Blaine says, swimming closer. “But I’m better now.”</p><p>Kurt watches the sprite tread water, drifting into the reach of the light. From this distance, Kurt can see the burn across Blaine’s forehead, the slight singe on the skin of his eyelids.</p><p>“Oh!” Kurt throws a hand to his face. “I’m so sorry!”</p><p>“It’s all right,” Blaine says, waving a hand. “I heal pretty quickly, don’t you worry.”</p><p>Kurt nods, but the look of sadness on his face remains, and Blaine wants so much to be the one to remove it.</p><p>“What’s your name?” Blaine asks.</p><p>Kurt opens his mouth to answer, but quickly shuts it again. “I don’t know that I should tell you,” he says, standing close to the fire for comfort.</p><p>Why not?” Blaine asks, keeping his distance even though he wishes he could move closer.</p><p>“Because names have power,” Kurt explains, “and if I tell it to you, you might use it to control my mind, drag me into the water and drown me.”</p><p>Blaine stares at Kurt for a moment, then bursts out laughing. Kurt frowns, taking great offense at the insolent sprite’s rude reaction.</p><p>“Who in the world told you that?” Blaine asks once he catches his breath.</p><p>“It’s a legend,” Kurt says defiantly. “Something that fairies <em>just</em> <em>know</em>.”</p><p>“Something fairies <em>just </em><em>know</em>, huh?” Blaine ducks down beneath the water to soothe his drying skin.</p><p>“Yes. Aren’t there any legends below the water where you come from? Stories that give you knowledge to guide your steps and keep you out of danger?”</p><p>“Actually, yes,” Blaine admits.</p><p>“Like what?” Kurt crouches down (against his better judgement) to hear the water sprite better.</p><p>“Well, water sprites <em>just</em> <em>know</em>,” Blaine starts, swimming to a point on the branch farther away from the fire than Kurt stands, “that this fire here is tended by a scary, ugly <em>witch</em><em>!</em>”</p><p>“<em>What</em><em>!</em>?” Kurt barks. “But … but I …!”</p><p>Blaine laughs again, shaking his head as the fairy glares at him. “You see? Some things that we <em>just</em> <em>know</em> aren’t necessarily true.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Kurt agrees, “but if you’re not here to lure me down below and kill me, then why are you here?”</p><p>Blaine goes quiet. Frankly, he didn’t know himself. He had a good reason for coming up the first time. He’d been curious. But why did he feel the need to come back? He hadn’t really been able to answer that for himself other than he needed to see the fairy again.</p><p>He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t.</p><p>“I … I wanted to talk to you,” Blaine says. “I saw you last night, and I didn’t get to say hi.”</p><p>Kurt’s lips quirk in confusion. “You came all this way to say <em>hi</em>?”</p><p>“A-ha.” Blaine raises an arm out of the water and extends it Kurt’s way. “My name is Blaine.” He hopes that offering the fairy his name first would be construed as an act of trust. Kurt looks at the sprite’s arm, at the droplets sliding down his skin, falling into the water. Each one hitting the surface sends a shiver down Kurt’s spine. Blaine raises his eyebrows, waiting for the fairy to take his hand and shake it. “And you are …?”</p><p>Kurt looks Blaine over, not sure about taking his hand. It seemed like asking for trouble. One hard tug and Kurt would be plummeting into the water, never to be seen or heard from again. But his eyes fall on the burns on Blaine’s face, and he knows he can’t deprive the sprite of his name at least for the pain he has caused.</p><p>“Kurt,” he says, withdrawing back behind the fire with only his head poking out. “My name is Kurt.”</p><p>“Kurt,” Blaine repeats, smiling when he does. Such a simple name, but it seemed to fit. Blaine liked it. He liked it a lot. “Well, Kurt …” Blaine reaches the branch and attempts to pull himself onto it “… I …”</p><p>“Kurt!”</p><p>“<em>No!</em>” Kurt groans in disbelief. “Not <em>now</em>!”</p><p>Blaine lets go of the branch. “Who is it?”</p><p>“It’s my <em>sister</em><em>!</em>”</p><p>“Oh,” Blaine says with a twinge of disappointment. “Should I come back another time?”</p><p>“No! Don’t go! Just … just hide!”</p><p>“Okay.” Blaine sinks beneath the water, finds an area of thick weeds to hunker down in.</p><p>“Kurt!” Rachel calls, landing on the branch right as Blaine disappears.</p><p>“What?” Kurt returns to the flame, drawing Rachel’s eyes with his movements so she doesn’t spot the disturbance in the water.</p><p>“I noticed that the flame looked dimmer than usual,” she comments, picking up a handful of leaves and tossing them into the fire. They curl and crackle, devoured by the flame, but the fire doesn’t change or grow, not at all amused by Rachel’s amateurish efforts.</p><p>“Did you?” Kurt mutters, picking up a few petals and tossing them in, smirking when the flame rises high, outdoing his sister by a mile.</p><p>“Yes. So I came down here to make sure it was okay, and that you weren’t letting it go out. You know what will happen if you do.”</p><p>Kurt takes a step, twirling on his toes and tossing more petals into the fire. “No,” Kurt says sarcastically. “Why don’t you tell me?”</p><p>“The water will rise up!” Rachel raises her arms over her head, trying to coax the fire into climbing for her but with no success. “It’ll wash over the land, sweeping every last one of us into the sea!”</p><p>“Oh, how awful! If only we could do something to escape the rising water … like <em>fly away</em> …” Kurt flaps his wings for emphasis, sending up silver sparkles much brighter than any Rachel has managed to conjure. The fire flickers as if laughing. Rachel’s mouth twists unpleasantly as she watches Kurt dance, all the while Kurt wishing she would just go away.</p><p>“By the way, who were you talking to?” Rachel asks, hands on hips, accusation in her eyes.</p><p>Kurt stops dancing. “Nobody,” he says sternly.</p><p>“Oh but I heard you talking to someone,” Rachel insists.</p><p>“As you can clearly see, there’s nobody here.” Kurt opens his eyes wide and gestures around. “So maybe you’re hearing things.”</p><p>Rachel quirks her lips and attempts to stare her brother down, but Kurt stares right back, challenging her to blink first.</p><p>“Fine. Then teach me a few more steps.”</p><p>Kurt sighs, rolling his head on his neck and staring up at the stars. “Not tonight, Rachel.”</p><p>Rachel stomps her foot. “Why not!?”</p><p>Kurt glances at the water behind Rachel and spots Blaine’s face peeking up at him from below the surface.</p><p>“Because I need some time alone,” he says. “To think.”</p><p>Rachel follows Kurt’s gaze, turning towards the water, but Kurt races around her to block Blaine’s face.</p><p>“To think about what?” she asks suspiciously, leaning to see around her brother’s body.</p><p>“Too much to tell. I’m going to be king soon and I have a lot on my mind. You wouldn’t understand.”</p><p>“I don’t believe you!” she whines, stomping her foot again and sticking her nose in the air. “You’re hiding something from me and I’m not leaving until you tell me what it is!”</p><p><em>Not a chance</em>, he thinks. As much as Kurt loves Rachel, he can’t risk her finding out about Blaine. Rachel is the closest thing Kurt has to a best friend, but she can’t keep a secret to save her life.</p><p>It doesn’t matter anyway since Blaine isn’t a secret that he wants to share.</p><p>“I don’t care what you believe,” Kurt says, gathering a ball of flame from the fire. “I want you to leave, and now you’re going to go.”</p><p>Rachel’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates when she sees the fire in Kurt’s hands – a trick she can neither do <em>nor</em> deflect. “You <em>wouldn’t</em>!”</p><p>Kurt raises his arm and Rachel shoots into the sky like a rocket, that obnoxious trail of pink following her as she leaves. He watches her zip away, making sure she makes it out of the cove safely, then tosses the ball of flame back into the fire and dusts off his soot-covered palms.</p><p>“That was … that was incredible,” a quiet voice says from behind him.</p><p>“Hmm?” Kurt turns to see Blaine emerge from the water. He pulls himself onto the end of the branch, farthest from the fire, and stares at Kurt with awe. “What was?”</p><p>“The way you made that ball of fire. Could you always do that?”</p><p>“Yes and no,” Kurt says, re-claiming his seat beside the flame. “I could always hold fire. Turning it into a ball took me a little while to learn.”</p><p>“Can other fairies do that?” Blaine asks, scooting a bit closer to Kurt.</p><p>“No.” Kurt tries his best not to sound conceited, though his ability to handle fire is one of the things he’s most proud of. “It’s a talent that only members of the royal family have, and right now, one only my mother and I possess.”</p><p>Blaine stops scooting, and his jaw drops. “You’re <em>royalty</em>?”</p><p>Kurt moves closer to Blaine. “Yeah,” he says, though this he doesn’t sound quite as proud of. “I’m a prince,” he reveals with a sigh. “And on my birthday, I’m going to become king.”</p><p>“Wow.” Blaine moves again. “And when’s your birthday?”</p><p>“In five days. During the solar eclipse.”</p><p>“That’s really interesting. Because you see, I …” Blaine’s hand brushes Kurt’s, his wet skin hissing when it touches Kurt’s warmth.</p><p>“Because you what?” Kurt asks, mesmerized by the sound, the tingle on his flesh.</p><p>“I …”</p><p>Leaves rustle in the trees overhead. A large shadow passes with a trail of rose gold blazing behind it.</p><p>“Oh, really, Rachel!” Kurt snarls as the shadow makes another pass. Thinking quickly, he shoves Blaine into the water. The tingle settles in his palms. He closes his fists around it to hold onto it longer.</p><p>“Wha---what is it?” Blaine sputters, bobbing down fast, expecting something to swoop in and grab him.</p><p>“Oh, nothing! Just that <em>m</em><em>y sister told my mother on me</em>!”</p><p>“Gotcha. I’ll come back tomorrow night then.” Blaine disappears without giving Kurt a chance to say yes or no, and in his veins, Kurt’s blood boils.</p><p>“Kurt! Where are you?” He hears his mother search for him from the bough beside the fire, and for the first time he notices that the spot where he and Blaine were sitting is pretty much shielded from view of the sky. With any luck, his mother didn’t catch sight of Blaine at all.</p><p>But luck hasn’t exactly been on his side lately.</p><p>“Yes, Mother?” Kurt calls, taking a few steps forward and dropping into a dutiful bow.</p><p>“Kurt!” Elizabeth rushes for her son, concern in her voice. “Rachel says you were having a problem and that I needed to come right away!”</p><p>Kurt’s eyes find his sister, smiling smugly and sticking her tongue out, thin arms crossed over her chest. The boiling in his blood rises to his eyes and they begin to burn.</p><p>He turns those burning eyes on his mother, fighting hard to soften the glare. “Yes, Mother. I do have a problem.”</p><p>“Oh? What is it, my son? Tell me.”</p><p>“My problem is … I don’t get any peace! Night after night, my sister finds need to come down here and bother me! Soon, my time here will be done! I will be <em>king</em> and the freedom I have - the little I have - will be gone! I asked for one night to myself - <em>one night!</em> - and she couldn’t give me that!”</p><p>Kurt’s mother stares at him, expressionless, but that’s usually when other fairies would have need to fear. Her face becomes blank when she’s thinking through her next move. Kurt isn’t sure how his mother will respond to his confession, but when her face glows red, he takes that as a bad omen.</p><p>He holds his breath.</p><p>“Rachel!” His mother yells for her daughter, who has since dashed away.</p><p>“Y-yes, Mother?” Rachel says, cowering in the bushes, less cocky now that her mother’s steely eyes are fixed on her.</p><p>“Did your brother ask you to leave him alone?”</p><p>“Well …”</p><p>Elizabeth’s eyes flash wildly and Rachel whimpers from her hiding spot.</p><p>“Maybe. But I …”</p><p>“Yes … or … no?” Elizabeth asks, and Kurt actually feels sorry for his sister – though not much.</p><p>“Well … yes, but …”</p><p>“But nothing!” the queen roars, raising a hand to silence her daughter. She looks back on her son with sympathetic eyes. “Kurt, I apologize for the behavior of your sister. If you are willing to bestow upon her your forgiveness, I will personally ensure that she does not leave the palace again until your coronation. What say you?”</p><p>“I forgive her,” Kurt says, bowing low, not a line on his face betraying his inner rush of triumph. “Thank you, my queen.”</p><p>“No. Thank you, my son.” Elizabeth kisses Kurt on the top of his head. “We will leave you to your thoughts.”</p><p>Kurt nods, raising his eyes once more to his sister, rising up slowly from her hiding place.</p><p>“Rachel!” their mother snaps. “You will come with me! And since you are so eager to be up and about when you should be resting, we will start your lessons early. <em>Now</em>, in fact!”</p><p>The queen flies off toward the palace, Rachel following behind. Rachel peers over her shoulder and spies her brother, waving with a patronizing smile on his face, returning to his dance around the flame.</p><p>She grits her teeth, trembling from head to toe as she silently plots her revenge.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Blaine zips through the water, laughing as he goes. He twirls through the current on pointed toes, dancing with arms outstretched the way Kurt does around his flame. Tripping several times over nothing proves that Blaine is nowhere near as graceful as Kurt, but that doesn't matter. Attempting those complicated steps makes him feel closer to the fairy. </p><p>Like he doesn't ever have to leave him.</p><p>Blaine weeds in among a school of moonfish, leaping from bony back to bony back, checking himself in the reflection of their scales. He holds up his arms as if he's circling the water with Kurt in his embrace. He closes his eyes, and in his mind he's back on the surface with Kurt's body pressed against his, the handsome fairy throwing his head back and laughing up at the sky. He's so real in Blaine's mind that Blaine can actually <em>feel</em> him - his skin warm, his hair soft as it tickles Blaine's cheek, the two of them daring anyone to see them, to know with one glance what Blaine realized the moment Kurt spoke to him and his heart stopped in his chest.</p><p>Blaine is in love.</p><p>How it can happen so quickly – or how it can happen <em>at all</em> considering – Blaine doesn't know, nor does he care. He is filled to the brim with this new sensation, leaving not an inch of room in his heart or in his thoughts for anything but Kurt. He’s light-hearted, ridiculous, adolescent – all the things his father tried to train out of him.</p><p>He nearly dances all the way back to the castle, his mind a mess of thoughts that make little sense other than they’re about Kurt, and that makes a million-and-one other vastly important things easy to miss.</p><p>Like the eyes of both friend and foe watching his every move as he finally arrives to the castle and skips inside.</p><p>"Blaine!" Trent races to catch up with his friend. "Blaine! Wait up!"</p><p>"I can't." Blaine gives in to a huge yawn but quickens his steps. "I have to hit the rack. I had a big night and I'm <em>exhausted</em>."</p><p>"Yeah … that's … kind of what I need to talk to you about."</p><p>Blaine slows as he reaches his door, which gives Trent the chance to catch up.</p><p>"Do we have to?" Blaine groans. “I really need some sleep. I’m dead on my feet as is.” In truth, he’s running on adrenaline, so even though he’s yawning after every other word, he probably could spare a moment. But he doesn't want this now. He doesn't <em>need</em> it now. Not when he has plans to spend a long morning dreaming about talking to Kurt, making Kurt laugh, dancing with Kurt … </p><p>… kissing Kurt …</p><p>Trent puts his hand on Blaine's door, holding it shut. "It's important." Blaine sighs. He can easily strong-arm Trent away from the door, but Trent is his best friend. He's only looking out for Blaine's best interests. Blaine knows that.</p><p>If only Trent took his job a little less seriously.</p><p>"<em>Fine</em>. What is it?"</p><p>"Where were you last night?" Trent asks, having the good sense to whisper. But that regard for Blaine’s privacy doesn’t earn him any points. Blaine is long over people checking up on him. When will being prince, or <em>king</em> for that matter, mean that he can be trusted?</p><p>Apparently, today is not that day.</p><p>"Where do you <em>think</em> I was, Trent?"</p><p>"Did you go back to the cove? To see …?"</p><p>Another heavier sigh. "Yes. I did."</p><p>"Why didn't you take me with you?" Trent asks, sounding hurt.</p><p><em>Ugh!</em><em> Not that!</em> Blaine thinks. <em>Anything but that</em><em>! Be angry! Be disappointed! Don’t be hurt! </em>He clenches his jaw until his ears ring. No! He refuses to feel guilty! He doesn't want to have this conversation! He doesn't want to admit to his best friend that he deliberately left him behind!</p><p>"Plausible deniability," Blaine says. "This way if my father asked, you wouldn't need to lie. You're a <em>horrible</em> liar."</p><p>"But … but <em>why</em>?" Trent asks.</p><p>Blaine doesn't answer. He shouldn’t have to. But from the look in Trent's eyes, he doesn't need to.</p><p>"You … you didn't," Trent stammers. "You don't …!"</p><p>Blaine drops his forehead against his door with a hollow <em>thunk</em><em>.</em></p><p>"How can you!? It’s only been <em>one damn day</em>! <em>W</em><em>hy didn't you tell me</em>!?"</p><p>"I only have four days left, Trent!" Blaine growls. "Do you know how heartbreaking that is? Can you even comprehend how much that hurts? I may be a prince, but that doesn’t mean I have any rights to my own life, any say in what I do or how things turn out! I should think that your job as my handler makes that obvious! I am a servant of our people! Everything I have, everything I <em>am</em>, I’m expected to give to our kingdom, with my father disappointed in me every step of the way! But I’ve finally found something that I might have a chance to call mine - that can make me happy - and I only have four days to enjoy it! So forgive me if I wanted to be alone with him!"</p><p>Trent doesn't respond, doesn’t move, barely breathes, lingering by his prince’s side with that same look of hurt in his eyes. Maybe even a hint of betrayal.</p><p>And Blaine can't stand being in his friend's presence any longer.</p><p>"Look," he says, removing Trent's hand roughly and opening his door, "I will be king for the rest of my life, trapped down here in this palace. I'll probably turn into some sort of disgusting, bloated bottom-feeder just like my father has. All I'm asking for is four lousy days!I thought that maybe, as my friend, <em>you</em> would understand."</p><p>Blaine storms into his room and slams the door in Trent's face. He throws himself down on his bed, squeezing his eyes shut to capture his last memories of Kurt's soothing song to lull him to sleep.</p><p>***</p><p>"So are you really a prince, or are you trying to impress me?" Kurt asks, tossing a handful of fresh leaves into the flame, turning it a sapphire blue. Blaine applauds as he watches Kurt pick up a handful of flowers and toss them in after, turning the fire violet as a result.</p><p>"Yes, sir. I am a bona fide prince, I promise you that," Blaine says. "I tried to tell you last night, but we got invaded and you pushed me overboard."</p><p>Kurt thinks back on the moment his mother arrived, remembering that he had shoved Blaine into the water mid-speech.</p><p>"Oh." Kurt blushes to match the flame. "Right." He dusts the pollen from his hands and walks over to where Blaine has been sitting on the branch, watching him work. "Should I call you <em>your highness </em>then?" he jokes. "Or will <em>your majesty</em> work?</p><p>"No! Never!" Blaine reels backward and pretends to vomit. Kurt raises a dignified eyebrow, but laughs at the sprite's antics. "You're a prince, too, so I would say your station and my station cancel each other out."</p><p>Kurt bobs his head as he thinks it over. "I agree. No titles then. Just Kurt and Blaine."</p><p>"Right." Blaine settles back onto the branch. "Kurt and Blaine."</p><p>Kurt swings his legs back and forth, the soles of his feet barely brushing the surface of the water. "So what is it like where you live? It seems so dark and spooky to me from up here."</p><p>Blaine puffs his chest with pride at Kurt showing interest in his kingdom. "It's not that at all!” Blaine looks into the pool for an example, but all he sees is dreariness and black. If this pool always looks this way, he can understand why Kurt thinks that. "Well, okay, there are places that are spooky," he amends. "It can be dark and cold definitely, but mostly it's <em>glorious</em>."</p><p>"Really?" Kurt asks, eyes bright with the glow of the flame a short distance away. "What's glorious about it?"</p><p>"So much, I don't even know where to start!" Blaine dips into the water, then climbs back up onto the branch - a habit he's developed to combat the drying heat of the flame. "There is so much life under the sea, plants and animals of every shape and color. It can be overwhelming if you’re not used to it, but it's also peaceful."</p><p>Kurt's head starts to bow, his cheerful smile creeping toward a frown.</p><p>"Like … like up here, right?" Blaine asks, wondering where Kurt's smile has gone. "The night sky, the colorful flowers, the forest and all its inhabitants to keep you company …"</p><p>"The fire keeps the sea calm," Kurt says. "It protects the fairies from the water, but it also keeps the animals away. It's actually rather lonely for me out here."</p><p>"What about during the day?" Blaine asks. "When you're not guarding the fire?"</p><p>"Then I am at the palace learning what I need to know to become king. It takes up most of the day, all of my time. My mother is … how shall I put it … <em>vigilant</em>."</p><p>"So in that large palace of yours, you don't have any friends?" Blaine watches Kurt pick up a petal and set it down gently on the water, pushing at it with his toe until it drifts away.</p><p>"No. None but my sister Rachel, and she can be a colossal pain." Kurt chuckles dryly. Blaine tries to smile. He tilts his head, watching Kurt examine his reflection in the water. It gives him an idea.</p><p>"What would happen to you if you went into the water?" Blaine asks.</p><p>Kurt's eyes pop wide, but not with fear. Not of Blaine. Blaine can see Kurt considering the possibilities of visiting his kingdom beneath the sea. Kurt leans forward. "Can I tell you a secret?"</p><p>"Of course." Blaine moves closer. He'd really like to touch Kurt, feel what the heat of Kurt's skin would do to the cool of his hand, but he keeps his hands locked to the branch.</p><p>Kurt's eyes shift uneasily left and right, searching for ears in the forest that might overhear. "I have touched the water," he confesses. "Only briefly. Out of curiosity. And that is fine. But if I were to submerge myself, I would die." He turns his head to the flame, eyeing the flickering light. "We all come from the fire. It lives within us. It keeps us young and alive forever. If I were to go beneath the water, like any fire fairy, that fire would extinguish. Even my mother, the most powerful fire fairy among us, does not venture under the water."</p><p>Blaine's spirits fall.</p><p>The more he learns about Kurt and the fire fairies, the more Blaine knows this tiny cove is the only place they’ll ever be able to meet. There's no way he could visit Kurt for long on land, or in his palace. He would dry out without the sea, and the daylight would kill him.</p><p>But he’s going to be king soon, and as king, there has to be something he can do - some small way he can change things. He chews his lower lip, giving it thought. As a prince, he’s limited. He is constantly watched, and there are things he needs to ask permission for. But not as king. He’ll have advisors, yes, but the final say belongs to him. As king, he could end the feud between the sprites and the fire fairies. And then he and Kurt would have no need to hide their affection for one another. </p><p>Maybe he doesn’t have to be bound to the palace the way his father is. There’s no reason he can think of that he should be required to lock himself away to serve his people. He’s always felt his father’s decision to stay in one place was a deficit. As King of the Sea, he should travel the whole ocean for himself instead of having generals and ambassadors do it for him. Yes! Blaine will do that! He’ll have the power to make that happen!</p><p>In this way, he will be a far better king than his father … and he may get to be with Kurt yet.</p><p>It might just be a dream, but the thought raises his spirits once again.</p><p>And now, only four more days no longer feels like a sentence.</p><p>"Too bad." Blaine kicks his feet, his toes forming ripples over the water's surface. "It would be nice for you to see my world, feel the water on your skin, how it can calm, soothe …"</p><p>"I don't think the water would feel the same to me as it does to you." Kurt catches his reflection again when the ripples on the water cease. He’s shooting down Blaine’s suggestion, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t dreamt about it - swimming in the water, his legs and arms cutting through, propelling him forward, seeing things he’s never seen before, things he can’t even imagine. A loud pop pulls his attention, makes him turn toward the fire snapping and shimmering in ways Kurt can't recall seeing before. When he turns to Blaine to mention it, the sprite is staring at him.</p><p>Strangely so.</p><p>"Why do you look at me that way?" Kurt asks.</p><p>Blaine jerks back. "In what way?"</p><p>"In … <em>that</em> way," Kurt says, not knowing how to explain it. "Like you've lost something. Or you've found something. Something you’ve been looking for forever. It's a little … unnerving."</p><p>"I'm sorry," Blaine says but not looking away. "It's only that …"</p><p>"Only what?"</p><p>Blaine reaches into the water with his cupped hands. He scoops up some water and pours it over his hair, down his face. Kurt watches the water drip down his body, each droplet reflecting light like a prism across his skin. For a moment, he becomes a beacon – and that beacon calls to Kurt.</p><p>Everything about Blaine calls to him.</p><p>His voice, his eyes, his skin, his hands, his smile, his laugh …</p><p>"I would like to kiss you."</p><p>Kurt's eyes, which had been chasing the beads of water as they dripped along Blaine's skin, fly up to his face.</p><p>"Why?" Kurt asks. “We are not related.”</p><p>Blaine feels his cheeks redden. He hadn’t expected this. He didn’t know a single thing about fairy courtship or mating rituals, or if they even had any! But who knew he would need to explain why he might want a kiss?</p><p>"Where I come from, when you like someone, and they like you, you press your lips to theirs."</p><p>Kurt makes a face. "Ugh!" he exclaims. "My mother has only ever kissed me on the forehead! Or the cheek! But on the mouth? Where you <em>eat</em>!?” Kurt puts his fingertips to his lips, nibbling the tips with his teeth. Perfect white teeth … “That sounds <em>foul</em>!"</p><p>Blaine rolls his eyes away in embarrassment. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem so bad to me.”</p><p>Kurt looks at Blaine's lips, focusing on the way they pull down at the corners as his expression changes, his tongue running over them slowly to wet them.</p><p>"Have you ever kissed anyone?" Kurt asks shyly, paying more attention to Blaine's lips than he has ever paid attention to anyone's before. “On the mouth?”</p><p>"No," Blaine admits. "I've never liked anyone like that before. Besides, I'm <em>royalty</em>, and no one kisses royalty but royalty."</p><p>The fairy and the sprite grow quiet, legs swinging in an even rhythm over the water.</p><p>"<em>I</em> am royalty," Kurt says softly.</p><p>"Yeah," Blaine agrees, eyeing the fairy prince as he contemplates his next move. Kurt slides down the branch up to Blaine, feeling his own fire cool as Blaine's skin absorbs his heat, turning it a light shade of rose where Kurt's skin brushes against it. But it doesn't burn.</p><p>It tingles.</p><p>"So, would it be …" Kurt whispers, leaning closer, pausing a moment to see what Blaine will do "… like this?" Kurt fits his lips to Blaine's mouth – carefully, unsure. Blaine stops breathing. Or his breath gets stolen away. But the first touch of Kurt's lips against his own feel like falling too fast, plummeting down to that bottomless abyss Trent nearly lost him to with no one to stop him.</p><p>But Blaine doesn't want to stop falling. Not for a minute.</p><p>Then Kurt pulls back and the kiss is done – over too quickly, his fairy too far away.</p><p>“Like that?”</p><p>"Close." Blaine clears his throat awkwardly as Kurt stares at him, nervously awaiting a reaction. "But maybe we could try it like this …"</p><p>Blaine reaches out a hand, pausing at Kurt's neck to get used to the heat stinging his fingertips. He threads his fingers through Kurt's hair and pulls him close. Kurt's lips on his are surprisingly cool. He smells like the flowers he gathers in the meadow that he feeds to the fire, his hair soft like their petals. Blaine feels himself engulfed in light, the flame behind them moving through the spectrum of colors from pink to green to blue and then gold. He hears Kurt hum in his ears as he slides his lips against his and it becomes a song – a new song, one he's never sung before.</p><p>Kurt only stops when he hears Blaine's skin sizzle.</p><p>Blaine drops down in the water to cool off, quell his blush, calm the erratic pounding of his heart. The first thing he sees when he bobs up is Kurt's worried face.</p><p>"How was … how was that?" Blaine asks, climbing back onto the branch, his skin returning to its normal color.</p><p>"Are you alright?" Kurt asks, hands hovering in the air, prepared to do … <em>something</em> to help.</p><p>Blaine grins like the quarter moon. “I’m fine. Actually, I'm better than fine."</p><p>"Do you … do you think you might want to do that again?" Kurt asks.</p><p>"Yes! Of course! But only if you want to-<em>umph</em>!"</p><p>Blaine stops talking with Kurt's mouth on his. Blaine smiles and Kurt kisses him harder. Blaine wraps his arms around him, stopping every so often to dip into the water. But the longer they kiss, the more Blaine can withstand the heat of Kurt's skin, until nothing about Kurt burns anymore.</p><p>***</p><p>Blaine doesn't want to leave Kurt. He doesn’t ever want to leave. It takes another shove back into the water from Kurt to get Blaine to realize that daylight has started skating across the ocean, spreading its fingers to grab hold of them.</p><p>It would energize Kurt with one hand, and with the other, burn Blaine alive.</p><p>The whole night spent kissing Kurt, Blaine couldn't stop thinking about bringing Kurt with him under water. There has to be a way, even if it’s only for a little while – just long enough to show Kurt his kingdom, his castle, and all the incredible beauty of life beneath the sea. Besides his father (and he has no intention of asking him) Blaine can think of only one creature in the sea who might know a way.</p><p>But she is going to be difficult to get to.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun rises, the sky turns gold, and Kurt can’t stop smiling.</p><p>There’s a new spring in his dance, a new song in his heart, and the flame – glowing in shades of champagne and primrose – has never looked happier.</p><p>Elizabeth smiles as she steals a moment to watch her son dance, relieved that he seems so much more joyful and carefree. Kurt tosses his flowers into the flame and the fire rises high into the sky, mirroring his joy, bending and swaying with him as he leaps into the air. Elizabeth drops down onto the branch, giggling delightedly at the giddy expression on her son’s grinning face.</p><p>It makes her feel young again.</p><p>“That’s a lovely song, my son,” she comments. “Is it new?”</p><p>Kurt stops twirling and immediately bows, so lost in his memories of Blaine that he had lost track of the rising sun and the imminent arrival of his mother.</p><p>“New song? What?” Kurt hadn’t been intentionally singing a different tune, but as his thoughts drifted to Blaine’s kisses, he couldn’t help himself. “Yes! It’s something I’ve been trying! Something new … uh … for the fire!”</p><p>Elizabeth watches her son’s eyes dart guiltily away, his cheeks color, his upper lip quiver … and she knows.</p><p>A mother <em>always</em> knows.</p><p>“And does … the <em>fire</em> like it?” Elizabeth asks, gathering up flowers from the meadow nearby. She can’t help noticing the petals that litter the pool, set adrift through the night, floating and swirling in formation like tiny boats.</p><p>“Y-yes.” Kurt tosses his last handful of petals into the flame. “V-very much so, I think. But it’s not a complete song yet. Just a few strains. I’m not even sure that I’ll keep it, to tell you the truth.”</p><p>“A-ha.” His mother throws her first batch of flowers into the fire, watching the colors change from the intense turquoise Kurt had managed to cull to a more sedate sky blue. “That’s a love song that you are singing.”</p><p>“Is … is it?” Kurt looks from his mother’s perceptive eyes to the petals floating in the water. “To tell you the truth, I-I hadn’t really noticed.”</p><p>Elizabeth leaves the flame to devour the remainder of the flowers and walks over to her son. She peers over his shoulder, the reflection of her face joining his, framed by the petals all around.</p><p>“Sweetheart, you’re going to become king in three days,” she says, combing his hair back into place with her fingers. “Right now is not a good time for you to fall in love.”</p><p>Kurt’s mind wanders, back to thoughts of his night with Blaine, and he swallows a sob.</p><p>“Will there ever be a good time?” he asks, looking past his reflection and far beyond the pool, out to the open ocean.</p><p>Kurt hears his mother sigh behind him. He folds his arms over his chest, raising his hands to cover hers where they rest on his shoulders.</p><p>“No, my darling,” she says, resting her forehead against his temple, wishing she could use her powers to rid him of his pain. “It will never be a good time. So whoever it is … I suggest you forget about them.”</p><p>***</p><p>Blaine emerges from the forest of kelp – exposed, vulnerable, out of his depth and miles beyond the borders of his kingdom. The kelp forest is farther than he has ever traveled alone, but he doesn’t have to go too much farther before he spots the animal he’s come for.</p><p>Sue.</p><p>An ancient sea turtle and one of the oldest living creatures beneath the sea.</p><p>A recluse, she spends most of her time terrorizing errant water sprites who wander too far from the castle and grazes in the jellyfish fields far beyond the boundaries of where it is deemed safe for any sprite to go … especially one of royal blood.</p><p>Blaine watches her list from side to side, her massive flippers pushing the water around her. He swims up behind her, keeping an eye out for other fish, especially <em>jellyfish</em>, who might look to capture him – or <em>eat</em> him. There’s not much use for political prisoners out here in the deep, this much he knows for certain.</p><p>He’s nearly upon her when she spins around unexpectedly, locking him in the gaze of her large, round, coal-black eyes – eyes full of experience and intelligence, but not an inch of compassion. She stares at him impatiently, every line of her face creasing in vexation at his presence as she lazily chews a jellyfish, the poor thing wrenching its translucent body back and forth in an effort to escape her bite.</p><p>“Now why would you try a stupid thing like sneaking up on me?” she mutters, mouth full.</p><p>Blaine remembers from numerous etiquette lessons that sea turtles like to be flattered, spoken to with an extraordinary measure of respect worthy of their incredible age. (And, according to his teacher, he should overdo it to be on the safe side.) Blaine bows low in her sight and, humbling himself, begins to speak.</p><p>“Oh, great and wise sea turtle, revered queen of the open ocean, guardian of …”</p><p>“Cut the crap!” the turtle gripes, spitting out the struggling jellyfish. It aligns its torn body with the current, preparing to escape, but Sue sucks it back into her grotesque maw, clamping down on it with her jaws. “Just skip to the end where you tell me what the hell you want! I’m eating here, and looking at your ugly mug gives me indigestion.”</p><p>Blaine frowns, but bites his tongue quickly to keep from saying anything that will make her angry.</p><p>“I want to know, wise turtle, if there is any way a fire fairy can visit my father’s kingdom beneath the sea?”</p><p>The turtle narrows her eyes at him but continues chewing, mouth slightly open, the mangled jellyfish making a last ditch effort to break free. Suddenly, Blaine feels sick. Sue sees him turn several shades of green and gulps down the squiggling remains of her lunch.</p><p>“Don’t feel sorry for him, Your Highness,” Sue says with a smirk. “Stupid brainless things, jellyfish. Can’t make a single decision for themselves. That’s why they’re so easy to catch.” She takes one last huge swallow to force it down, then belches in Blaine’s face. He raises his hands and covers his mouth to keep from losing his stomach. “Now, why would you want to bring one of those flitty little porcelain playthings down here to paradise with us?”</p><p>“I have my reasons,” Blaine says, undeterred by her sarcasm.</p><p>Sue watches the sprite closely and for an uncomfortably long time before she speaks again.</p><p>“You’ve fallen in love with one of them, haven’t you?” Sue laughs, nimbly spinning onto her back and then righting herself again. “Oh for heaven’s sake! Your father’s going to have field day if he ever finds out!” she proclaims with a cruel glimmer in her eyes.</p><p>“He’s not <em>going</em> to find out,” Blaine says, his voice changing from respectful to clear warning. She glares at him, challenging the young prince’s authority, but seeing his determination, she shrugs her front flippers, deciding that defying him is not worth her time.</p><p> “Well, be that as it may, there is nowhere beneath the water a fire fairy will be safe, so you might as well forget your silly notions about bringing one down here,” she grumbles, turning her prodigious body around and preparing to leave.</p><p>“I have seen hot things beneath the ocean before,” Blaine argues, “so there has to be a way.”</p><p>“Oh have you, young prince?” Sue asks with a wicked chuckle. “And what happens to fire that is brought beneath the sea? Hmm?”</p><p>“It … uh …” Blaine stops, seeing her point before she makes it, but she’s not about to let it die there.</p><p>“I’ll tell you,” she cuts in. “It turns cold, it turns black, and then it dies. You know that this is true. And anything you come up with to protect your fairy will only prolong the inevitable.” Sue shakes her huge head. “But if you don’t believe me, go ahead and bring your fairy down here. Watch it turn blue and cold and freeze to death. Watch the light in its eyes go out.” The turtle swims up to him, stopping nose to nose. Blaine can see his face reflecting back at him in her shiny black eyes - not a safe place to be. “You know, death for a fire fairy under the ocean is slow and excruciatingly painful. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. And I <em>loathe</em> pretty much everybody!”</p><p>Blaine imagines Kurt beneath the ocean – his pale skin turning unnaturally blue, his vibrant eyes going dark, the last breath in his body turning into bubbles and floating away with the tide.</p><p>“Do you really want my advice, Prince Blaine?”</p><p>“Yes,” Blaine says, willing to do anything, cut a deal with anyone, to find a way for him and Kurt to be together. “Please.”</p><p>“Forget about your fire fairy,” she says, sounding not the least bit apologetic. “You are going to become king of all the oceans. So why don’t you start by growing up?”</p><p>Blaine’s heart sinks, hard and fast. It must show on his face. With a smile of satisfaction on her fat, green lips, the turtle turns and leaves the prince in her wake, paralyzed by her words.</p><p> ***</p><p>Twilight falls with the undersea kingdom in an uproar when Blaine returns. Guards pour out of the castle, dressed for battle and armed to the teeth, heading in all directions. Amid the chaos of soldiers deploying, Trent manages to find the prince and drag him over to a secluded wall.</p><p>“Blaine! Where have you been!?” he asks, tremendously relieved. “Your father has been asking all over for you!”</p><p>“What the hell’s going on here?” Blaine asks, the excitement - and subsequent anguish - of his recent excursion overshadowed by the current chaotic activity.</p><p>“There’s been another jellyfish attack! When I couldn’t find you, knowing where you’ve been going, I feared the worse!”</p><p>“Where was the attack? Is anybody hurt?”</p><p>“The king doesn’t have that information yet. But it was a small colony over by the outer kelp forest.”</p><p>Blaine stares at Trent with confused eyes. “Did you say the outer kelp forest?”</p><p>“Yeah. Why?”</p><p>“I just came from there!” Blaine exclaims, ignoring the re-emerging look of hurt on Trent’s face. “There was no attack! The king’s intel is wrong! Who gave him this information?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” Trent hurries along the wall as Blaine heads inside the castle. “But from what I hear, it’s a reliable source.”</p><p>“No, it isn’t!” Blaine rushes with Trent in tow towards his father’s throne room. “It’s a set-up!”</p><p>The castle feels hollow, abandoned with the bulk of its inhabitants amassing outside and guarding the gates. Blaine can hear generals barking orders, preparing to send sprites by the hundreds to the kelp forests.</p><p>To start a war with no just cause. </p><p>Without even knowing it, Blaine returned just in time.</p><p>Blaine races down the hall and bursts through the ornate double doors of the king’s throne room, where his father sits, staring out the window, watching sprites gather from all over to protect their kingdom.</p><p>“Father,” Blaine announces himself, bowing to the king.</p><p>“And here comes my disgraceful son … at long last,” Malek scowls, wide yellow eyes staring at the still ocean. “To what do I owe the displeasure of your company?”</p><p>“Father!” Blaine pushes Malek’s insults aside for the good of their kingdom. “You have to call the troops back!”</p><p>“Why should I do that?” Malek asks, shifting his huge tentacles on the floor and re-locating to a different window.</p><p>“Because whatever information you have is wrong! I have a feeling that our kingdom is being set up. Why, I don’t know. But someone is intent on starting a war, and they’re using you to do it!”</p><p>Malek sits quietly, barely moving as his eyes follow the lines of soldiers in the courtyard.</p><p>“And why should I listen to you?” Malek asks, the room echoing with the resonance of his voice. “Even if what you say is the truth, you have shown yourself to be spoiled, disobedient, unworthy.”</p><p>“Father,” Blaine says, standing firm before his king, “I beg you to listen to me! What I say to you is the truth!”</p><p>Malek doesn’t comment on his son’s pleas, moving back again to the first window, his eyes fixed on his ever-growing army of sprites..</p><p>Blaine looks to Trent, who nods at him encouragingly. Hell or high water, he has to do what’s right - consequences be damned.</p><p>“I have just come from the kelp forest, Great King,” Blaine admits. “There is no army there. There’s been no attack. I swear this to you.”</p><p>Malek sighs his discontent. “Tell me, Blaine, why were you in the kelp forest to begin with? Your present duties did not require you to travel to those reaches of our kingdom.”</p><p>Blaine stares at his father, the truth dangling from his lips. “I … I … can’t tell you why, Father.”</p><p>Malek’s eyes burn with frustration and rage. “What!?” he roars to shake the entire palace. Trent drops to his knees with his hands over his ears.</p><p>“It was personal business of my own,” Blaine says, the closest thing to the truth that he can bring himself to admit. “Be angry with me if you want, but Father, you are making a mistake! You’ve been played! Someone is using you to start a war, but it doesn’t need to be that way! Call back your troops now!” Malek bares sharp, black teeth at his son. Blaine gets down on his knees before his father. “Please! We can put an end to this! Don’t be a pawn! Don’t be part of this slaughter! You want me to be a good king, and I’m trying to be! Listen to me! For once, <em>listen to me</em>!”</p><p>Malek’s expression doesn’t change. His tentacles coil into knots like fists; some of them pound the floor.</p><p>“If you are as loyal to this kingdom as you say,” Malek sneers, “then prove it! Go outside, stand a post, and defend this castle!”</p><p>Blaine glances out the window at the fading light crawling up toward the surface with a single thought in his mind.</p><p><em>Kurt</em>.</p><p>“But …”</p><p>“Stand a post! Defend this castle, and then you might regain some of my trust!” Those are Malek’s final words on the matter. He leaves the hall, disregarding his son as he sweeps by, nearly knocking him to the ground.</p><p>The throne room goes still after his father’s departure, and quiet as a tomb, the heavy walls blocking the <em>thump, thump, thump</em> of battle drums marking time outside. Trent nudges Blaine on the shoulder. Blaine turns to him, hoping that, even after Blaine tore into him, he’ll have words of comfort for him. Of support. Of wisdom.</p><p>But Trent says nothing.</p><p>He hands Blaine a trident – a weapon reserved for royalty.</p><p>Grimly, Blaine takes it. He has no other choice. He twirls it once in his hand, setting the base on the floor with a heavy <em>thunk</em>. Trent smiles, giving Blaine an approving pat on the back, glad to see his prince taking charge, fighting for his kingdom.</p><p>Back where he belongs.</p><p>Blaine gazes out the window in the direction of the cove and the forbidden waters that would take him to Kurt. </p><p>The waters he yearns to swim right now.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Kurt,” he says, watching the daylight disappear into the waves, then blink out of sight. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p> ***</p><p>Kurt can’t hide his excitement as he rushes to the cove, eager to see Blaine again. He’d listened to what his mother said and had given it a fair amount of thought throughout the day, but he decided in the end that he doesn’t care. They still have a few days left till the eclipse. If that’s all they are given, then Kurt will take it.</p><p>Besides, he understands full well what this is between them. It’s <em>love</em><em>.</em> And love thrives. It endures. Maybe if they put their heads together, they will be able to find a way to make this last beyond their coronations.</p><p>Beyond the inevitable.</p><p>Of course, there will be plenty of putting their heads together if Blaine kisses him again.</p><p>Kurt is surprised when he reaches the cove and Blaine isn’t there, hiding in the weeds, waiting for him to arrive like he had the night before, but Kurt isn’t discouraged. He sings his new song as he dances around the flame, adorning the water with petals, weaving the flowers into his own hair, hoping that somewhere beneath the water his music will reach Blaine, wherever he is, and lure him to the surface.</p><p>But it doesn’t.</p><p>Twilight turns into dusk, then dusk becomes dawn. </p><p>And Blaine does not return.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Elizabeth returns to the cove in the morning, she finds her son – the sanguine, romantic soul who had been dancing and singing happily the morning before – lying on the branch beside the flame, his eyes red and swollen from crying, picking petals out of the water and tossing them into the fire. With each new flower burned the flame reaches out to comfort him, but Kurt shoos it away.</p><p>She lands softly on the branch beside him. Kurt sits up, pushing the remaining petals away, watching as they float to the opposite side of the pool. Elizabeth puts a hand to his back and rubs soothing circles into his skin, her heart heavy with her son’s woe.</p><p>“It’s for the best, my love,” she says, kissing Kurt on the forehead. “It would have hurt more later on … I promise you.”</p><p>Kurt leans his head against his mother’s shoulder and cries - ugly, unattractive sobs, not at all befitting a prince. But his mother doesn’t judge him. She simply lets her son cry himself to sleep in her arms, then lays him down in the cool, green meadow grass to rest beneath the soothing glow of the sun.</p><p>*** </p><p>Blaine watches dark water turn bright as rays from the sun light the ocean; watches them travel along the surface, marking time as they go; and then slowly begin to fade; all from his post on the north wall – the farthest position from any real action should a jellyfish attack come.</p><p>Which Blaine knows it won’t, because there was no attack in the kelp forest, and there is no jellyfish army on its way. With any luck, the soldiers deployed to the jellyfish fields won’t find enough jellyfish to consider them a threat, and they’ll leave them in peace.</p><p>Sue’s words roll through Blaine’s brain over and over as he watches the currents change direction over his head: </p><p><em>Stupid brainless things. Can’t make a single decision for themselves.</em> </p><p>These attacks by the jellyfish had started only months ago, and every one of them left a bad taste in Blaine’s mouth.</p><p>The jellyfish have always been peaceful, nomadic creatures, drifting here and there with the tides, not bothering with the problems of other beings living beneath the sea. What could they possibly gain by starting a war?</p><p>Why on earth would they start one <em>now</em>?</p><p>There was something else going on, someone else behind this.</p><p>His father might consider these possibilities for himself if he would just listen, if he respected a single viewpoint that Blaine presented. Blaine had been trying to get his father to see reason since this whole odd business began, but never once did Malek care about any opinion Blaine had. Eventually Blaine stopped trying to get through to him.</p><p>If he’s made any mistakes at all, it’s that he let his father silence him with his indifference when he knew better.</p><p>Now he’s wasted a night on this ludicrous folly and for what?</p><p><em>Nothing</em>. He has no honor as far as his dad is concerned, no respect, and now, probably no Kurt.</p><p>He has two nights left to spend with Kurt before his coronation and he isn’t going to waste it waiting for an attack that will never happen.</p><p>“Here, Trent,” he says, relinquishing his trident and removing his armor.</p><p>“Wha---wait!” Trent says, taking the weapon only because Blaine thrusts it in his direction. “What are you doing!? Where are you going!?”</p><p>“This is a mistake. This whole thing is a mistake and you know it.”</p><p>“But, you have to …”</p><p>“I have to what, Trent!? Stand here while the hours drip by and Kurt moves farther and farther away from me? I don’t have that kind of time!”</p><p>“But the jellyfish …!”</p><p>“There is not going to be a jellyfish attack,” Blaine assures his friend. “There’s something else going on here.”</p><p>“Then you and me should go find out what it is!” Trent insists. “We need to discover once and for all what’s going on in this kingdom!”</p><p>“Why?” Blaine asks with a contemptuous laugh. “So my father can insult me again? Tell me I’m useless, that my opinions don’t matter?” Blaine shakes his head. “No. I can’t serve this kingdom at all until I become king. I have two days left and I’m not spending them standing against a wall.”</p><p>Blaine claps a shell-shocked Trent on the upper arm then scurries away. He sneaks down below the coral, coming up through the center of an ancient gorgonian that spits him out high above the castle. Taking to the shadows, he swims toward the surface.</p><p>He disappears from view in an instant.</p><p>Trent watches Blaine go, not sure how much longer he can stand by and watch his beloved prince skirt his destiny. Sea King is a heavy burden, not one to be taken lightly. He knows Blaine has had it rough, and he knows that the prince is trying. But watching him leave, Trent feels unsure for the first time ever that Blaine will be coming back.</p><p>Trent clutches Blaine’s weapon and his armor to his chest as the speck that is Prince Blaine vanishes into the forbidden waters.</p><p>“Watch, Trent,” Hunter says, appearing from out of nowhere to whisper in Trent’s ear, “as our prince runs on the possible eve of battle.”</p><p>“There is no cause to believe there will be a battle,” Trent says defensively. “That information was false. Prince Blaine proved it.”</p><p>“The king didn’t think so,” Hunter counters. “Nonetheless, where do you think he’s off to in such a hurry, hmm? Shouldn’t you chase after him like the trained pet you are and find out?” Hunter steps in front of Trent, filling the sprite’s view. “Or perhaps you know already.”</p><p>Trent turns indignant eyes on Hunter. “The king should have turned you out of the castle a long time ago. Whatever treachery you are trying to start, you will not start it here!”</p><p>Hunter snickers. “Is that supposed to be a warning?”</p><p>“It’s a <em>promise</em>. Now move aside.”</p><p>Trent doesn’t wait for Hunter to comply. He blows past, knocking him out of the way, and heads back to the castle.</p><p>*** </p><p>The sun sinks behind the horizon and the stars come out, filling the night with silver light. Kurt spent the whole day asleep beneath the boughs of the trees in the meadow, listening to the sorrowful sound of his mother’s song. He’d heard his mother sing to the Eternal Flame before, but this song was one he didn’t recognize, the words difficult to decipher as they were in a language he didn’t know.</p><p>In his sleep, he felt tears roll down his cheeks and fall into the grass. While his mother sang, Kurt dreamed of a life with Blaine in a place where the sea and the fire didn’t keep them apart, where they could swim in the ocean and lie together in the sun. A place where peace wasn’t maintained by tending a magical flame, and Blaine didn’t leave him every morning before the rising dawn.</p><p>It was such a wonderful dream, such a powerful dream, that it almost seemed real.</p><p>It was a dream he would have been happy not to wake up from.</p><p>His mother rouses him as night begins to fall. He wakes dutifully, kisses her on the cheek, and wordlessly tends the flame. Elizabeth watches her bereft son and sighs. Soon he will be king. He will transform into his fullest fairy self, and the pains and troubles of this former life will be behind him.</p><p>“Good-bye, my son,” she says, preparing to take flight. “It is rather fine out tonight. Try to have a pleasant evening. And know that no matter what, I love you … so very much.”</p><p>Kurt pauses, his hands dropping to his sides, his head bowed. “I love you, too.”</p><p>Kurt’s voice trembles, but it sounds strong, and Elizabeth finds solace in that, though it’s not her solace that concerns her. She longs to stay with her son, talk him through his grief, but she promised him time alone, and she, too, has much to come to terms with before she relinquishes her crown.</p><p>Her son isn’t the only one to notice that they’re running out of time.</p><p>She takes to the sky, joining the night, and returns to the palace.</p><p>There is silence in the cove, even louder than the crackling of the fire or the falling of Kurt’s tears. He lets them fall. He doesn’t wipe them away. He lets them cut down his face and leave their scars. He doesn’t watch his mother fly off, doesn’t see her signature gold sparkles color her trail across the sky when she leaves.</p><p>He doesn’t see the eyes watching him from the shadows, or the head that bobs above the surface the second his mother is out of sight.</p><p>“Kurt!”</p><p>It’s faint - a whisper carried on the wind but Kurt still hears it. It’s too surreal to wish for, must be some trick of the leaves on the trees, so he ignores it, hoping it will fade, cease tormenting him.</p><p>“Kurt!” He hears a splash, something moving in the pool, coming closer. “Kurt!” He sneaks a barely peek and …</p><p>It’s Blaine! Blaine is there, and Kurt’s heart skips, but he doesn’t grant the sprite the privilege of his eyes or his smile. Not yet. His heart is still too broken.</p><p>“You didn’t come last night,” he says, looking into the fire, trying to sound matter-of-fact instead of disappointed.</p><p>“I know.” Blaine rises out of the water to stand on the branch beside Kurt. “And I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Are you,” Kurt says, bitterness showing through the cracks of his detached façade as he tosses a handful of rose-colored leaves into the flame, turning the fire a vibrant red. </p><p>A red almost like blood.</p><p>“I am.” Blaine raises his hands and places them on Kurt’s shoulders. “The last thing I wanted to do was stay away from you.”</p><p>Kurt looks down at the shadows flicking over the water. “Then why? Why didn’t you come?”</p><p>“I …” Blaine thinks on his discussion with Sue, his arguing with his father, being treated like a failure for the thousandth time. He could use those as an excuse, but he wants to put that behind him and start over with Kurt. “I can’t explain except I made a decision … for the good of my kingdom … and it was the wrong one. But I’m here now, and I promise, I won’t stay away again.”</p><p>Kurt lifts his gaze to meet Blaine’s. “Really?”</p><p>“Really.” Blaine wraps his arms around Kurt’s waist and holds him tight, surprised at how not dried out he feels when he should. “And I realize we don’t have much time left …”</p><p>“Don’t …” Kurt cuts Blaine off with a sniffle, shaking his head, begging Blaine to stop, to put that thought away with all of their problems for now and not think about it until they absolutely have to.</p><p>Blaine runs his fingers through Kurt’s hair, kissing the crown of his head.</p><p>“I want to … <em>be</em> with you,” Blaine says, brushing Kurt’s hair away from his ear and kissing him softly.</p><p>“But, you <em>are</em> with me,” Kurt replies, closing his eyes and letting Blaine’s lips against his skin carry him away to that hideaway in his dreams where he and Blaine can live together in peace.</p><p>“I know that, but there are other ways I want to be with you.”</p><p>Kurt can’t imagine what other ways there are for them to be together. They’re sharing a moment, sharing their love, standing in each other’s arms, closer than he’s ever been to anyone. What other way is there to be with someone?</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Kurt says.</p><p>“Will you let me show you?” Blaine asks.</p><p>Kurt smiles, nods. “Yes.”</p><p>“Do you trust me?” Blaine trails kisses over Kurt’s skin – down his neck, across his shoulders, down his arm to his hand - each kiss followed by the slightest tremor down Kurt’s spine.</p><p>“Y-yes,” Kurt says, his skin turning pink as those kisses take effect. </p><p>“Good. Uh …” Blaine looks at his hands - ashy and tinged gray “… just a second. I forgot something.” He drops into the water, drenches himself thoroughly, then climbs back onto the branch.</p><p>Kurt giggles at the sopping sprite and offers him his hand. Blaine takes it, tugging Kurt down the branch just short of the water and into the grass, in the same covered area of bent branches where Kurt had slept all day long. He lays the fairy down, soft blue eyes watching as Blaine stretches out beside him.</p><p>Kurt’s brow furrows, another question imminent, but Blaine leans over Kurt’s body and kisses him - a gentle caress of his lips and tongue against Kurt’s mouth. The touch of Blaine’s tongue on his lips sends Kurt reeling with the sensations it creates, coiling throughout his body. Kurt opens his mouth for Blaine, wanting more of it, but instead of another kiss, Blaine’s lips travel down Kurt’s chin, down his neck, over his smooth chest. Kurt’s breath catches as each kiss finds a new patch of skin and claims it, sometimes sucking, sometimes licking, sometimes even nibbling.</p><p>Kurt relishes these new touches and the emotions they bring, which his fairy body tries to process one at a time. All Kurt’s life he longed to feel someone touch him, kiss him, hold him. Kurt is loved by his mother, revered by his people, but he is also handled with kid gloves, treated as if he will break - too precious to touch. No one but his mother kisses him, no one but his mother and sister hug him or hold his hand.</p><p>Blaine runs his hands down Kurt’s skin, his eyes following where his hands go, and Kurt finds himself rising to meet them. Blaine kisses him over and over. This mouth on his skin and these hands traveling his body are new and exciting. But more than that, they’re <em>fulfilling</em>. They fill holes left open by loneliness – by the duties that keep him locked in isolation.</p><p>“Touch me?” Blaine looks at Kurt with eyes he doesn’t recognize - black instead of golden, and <em>hungry</em>. If it wasn’t so exhilarating, it would be terrifying.</p><p>“O-okay.” Kurt tries to will his hands to move when Blaine’s mouth touches him again. He reaches out with trembling fingers and weaves them through Blaine’s hair. Blaine moans against his skin, and a series of brand new reactions fill him. His body aches but not painfully. It’s a need.</p><p>He <em>needs</em> Blaine.</p><p>He feels Blaine slip his fingers carefully beneath the waistband of his pants and Kurt jumps. He stares down and Blaine looks up, worry written all over his face.</p><p>“Is this okay?” Blaine asks, licking along the seam of his lips, the movement making Kurt shiver.</p><p>“Yes, please!” Kurt replies with no real inkling of what it is he’s asking for. He only knows that he wants it.</p><p>He feels Blaine pull his pants down his legs and fights the urge to cover himself, unsure of what Blaine will think of the way he looks naked. It’s not something he’s ever had to consider, and it’s strange to think about – uncomfortable even. But then Blaine climbs up his body and whispers in his ear, “You’re gorgeous. Do you know that?” and every trepidation he has strips away.</p><p>“Let me … let me see you, too?” Kurt asks.</p><p>Blaine hovers over Kurt’s body, stopped by the fairy’s nervous request. “All right,” he says, holding impossibly still.</p><p>Kurt reaches between them, grabbing hold of Blaine’s pants and tugging down slowly. His eyes leave Blaine’s face and travel down his body to where his hands remove Blaine’s clothes. Kurt gasps – not because of the impressive length standing hard between Blaine’s legs, but because of how alike the two of them seem, how the same their bodies are. They are two sides of a similar entity – the same smooth skin, the same strong features, the same desires, especially in this moment.</p><p>“Oh, Kurt,” Blaine whispers into the fairy’s hair as he balances up on his toes to help Kurt pull off his pants, and then kicks them aside. Blaine doesn’t need to tell Kurt what he wants. Kurt crawls his way down Blaine’s body, kissing him softly on his hip, on his thigh, back up to the hollow of his neck. Blaine lies down on top of him and Kurt exhales into Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine’s skin is cool around him, a soothing balance to the constant heat of Kurt’s flesh, and he wonders if this is how non-fire creatures feel – this comfortable middle-ground.</p><p>Kurt slides his arms around Blaine’s waist and holds him close.</p><p>“Wh-what do we do now?” he asks. Blaine leans forward and rubs his nose against Kurt’s, his lips sliding back and forth along Kurt’s smooth skin.</p><p>“You don’t have to do anything,” Blaine says, kissing Kurt on the cheek while he whispers into his ear.</p><p>“Then what …?”</p><p>Blaine moves, dragging himself against Kurt, sliding his length alongside Kurt’s, and Kurt’s words die in his mouth.</p><p>“Does that feel good?” Blaine asks, watching Kurt stare past him up into the sky, his mouth hanging open a bit, his lower lip quivering.</p><p>“Ye-ahuh,” Kurt answers, nodding as words escape him left and right.</p><p>Blaine chuckles and moves again, biting his own lip so as not to overwhelm the night with the sound of his own moans, eager to hear the sounds coming from Kurt’s mouth. Kurt gasps and the fire on the branch climbs higher. It lights the cove, highlighting the expression of shock and bliss on Kurt’s face.</p><p>Blaine’s body against Kurt’s is the thing Kurt has been missing all those nights alone. He’s a fantasy come true, far too perfect to be anything but a part of Kurt’s destiny – a sacred and important part. What cruel irony that the two of them should find each other now, at this late hour.</p><p>Kurt feels his body tighten, rapturously out of his control. He flows with it, lets it take him, lets <em>Blaine</em> take him, he realizes, as it’s the movement of his body that is causing Kurt to erupt in this way.</p><p>“Oh … Blaine …” Kurt closes his eyes, his back bending, his body rising up to meet him.</p><p>“I love you, Kurt,” Blaine mutters into the fairy’s neck as he grabs hold of Kurt’s hair and pulls him in for a kiss.</p><p>“I love you,” Kurt mumbles through swollen lips.</p><p>Kurt’s body shudders. It feels like the ground beneath them quakes, and the heat inside him is now all around them, lighting his skin on fire, turning his vision white, bathing the world in a light so bright it blinds him to everything but Blaine – his love for Blaine.</p><p>How he can no longer see a life without Blaine in it.</p><p>Kurt feels Blaine shudder, too. He buries his head into the crook of Kurt’s neck and cries out, unable to contain it any longer. Kurt relaxes beneath the water sprite with tears in his eyes, wishing that the light could have taken him away with it.</p><p>His mother was right. Good-bye is going to be much more agonizing after this.</p><p>“What … what was that?” Kurt asks, blushing brightly as his breathing returns to normal. “What we just did?”</p><p>“It’s an expression of love,” Blaine says at the corner of Kurt’s mouth. “What did you think?”</p><p>“That was incredible!” Kurt replies with a joyous laugh.</p><p>“I’m glad. I thought so, too, but I was afraid you wouldn’t like it.”</p><p>“Is that … is that always done like that?” Kurt asks, kissing Blaine’s lips between words.</p><p>“No.” Blaine bends his neck so Kurt will think to kiss him there. “Sometimes it’s different. Would you … like to do that again?”</p><p>“Yes, and more! I want to do everything with you!”</p><p>“Everything,” Blaine repeats, the beauty of that thought overshadowed by the reality of <em>one last day</em>.</p><p>But if there’s a chance - and Blaine holds out hope that there is - he’ll find a way for them to be together.</p><p>Splashing in the nearby pool, loud and clumsy, interrupts them, followed by a pained groan. Blaine stands and grabs his pants, throwing them on quickly and racing to the water’s edge to see who has discovered the hidden cove. Blaine sees pale hands grappling with the water, skin covered in blisters and hideous burns. Fingers curl into the sky, trying to grab hold of something. The hands find the branch and latch onto it. Bleeding arms follow, then a head.</p><p>“Trent!” Blaine cries, reaching into the water to grab the thrashing sprite and help him up onto the branch. Blaine lets out a choked sob when he sees his injured friend, his torn clothes and his many wounds.</p><p>“Blaine! Oh, Blaine! Thank the heavens you’re safe!” Trent smiles at his prince, anguish and relief at war on his face. Movement behind Blaine’s ear grabs Trent’s attention and he flails for a weapon, on edge from the ordeal he’s been through. He spots the fairy in the grass scrambling to get dressed, and his face crumbles. He grimaces at the fairy, staring him down with all the hatred he can muster.</p><p>“Trent!” Blaine barks, shaking Trent from his violent thoughts. “What happened!? Tell me!”</p><p>“It … it was the jellyfish!” Trent pants, choosing to look at the water instead of at his friend. “They laid siege on the castle … last night … and your father ...”</p><p>“What about my father?” Blaine puts a hand beneath Trent’s chin and pulls his face up to look at him. <em>“What happened to my father</em><em>!</em><em>?”</em></p><p>“Your father …” Trent swallows hard “… he thinks you’re <em>dead</em><em>!</em>”</p><p><em>“</em><em>Dead</em><em>?”</em> </p><p>His father thinks he's dead? He thinks his only son is dead? The thought strikes Blaine like an ice cold shard through the heart but then … does Malek, the Great Sea King, even care? Sadly enough, that doesn't matter. If Malek thinks Blaine is dead, then his kingdom might think so, too, and Blaine has a responsibility to his kingdom - one he may have prematurely sidestepped for selfish reasons, but he has no regrets.</p><p>“I have to go,” Blaine says to himself but out loud. “I have to show them I’m not … <em>Kurt</em>!”</p><p>Kurt flies to the branch. He glances sympathetically at Blaine’s friend, whose eyes have found interest in the water once more, and gives Blaine a kiss on the lips. “Go, my love. Go to your father. Get this all sorted out.”</p><p>“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Blaine promises, taking Kurt’s hands and kissing them. “And we’ll have one last night together.”</p><p>Kurt wants to object, wants to beg Blaine to think of a way for them to be together forever, but he doesn’t have enough time. He kisses Blaine on the cheek, watching as the two sprites dive into the water.</p><p>“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt whispers as they swim out of sight, reaching out a hand and gently touching the water, his fire lighting the pool for a second before fading away. “Please, be careful.”</p><p>“A-ha!” a high-pitched voice crows triumphantly from the air behind him. He turns quickly to see Rachel hovering with her hands on her hips, beaming down at him with a smug smile on her face. “I knew you were hiding something! And I knew it was something <em>big</em>! Now I’m going to tell Mother <em>everything</em>!”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Rachel!” Kurt snaps, hopping to his feet. “What in the world are you doing outside the palace? Mother said she would keep you in your room at night!”</p><p>Rachel lands, confident in the face of her brother’s anger, even as his eyes burn white hot like twin flames.</p><p>“Mother underestimates me,” Rachel says, tossing her curls over her shoulders. She glances into the water, admiring her own reflection, and notices Kurt’s face twitch nervously. Rachel’s eyes darken, a vicious twinkle in her smile. “So <em>that’s</em> the reason why you want to be alone here night after night, hmm?” she deduces, basking in the drama of the moment. “<em>That’s</em> why you had Mother keep me under lock and key? Won’t she be surprised to find out what you’ve been doing!?”</p><p>“It wasn’t <em>my</em> decision to lock you up at night!” Kurt says, his body filling with rage with no other emotion to buffer it. “It was <em>Mother’s</em> decision, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve it!”</p><p>Rachel harumphs, affronted by the accusation that she may have done anything to deserve imprisonment. It’s not her fault that her mother and brother give her no space to shine. Natural talent indeed! She could be just as talented as Kurt, just as adept at controlling the flame if they’d only teach her the things she needed to know.</p><p>They’re holding her back on purpose! How is she to blame when everyone knows she doesn’t do well learning during the daytime. They should let her accompany Kurt at night, accommodate <em>her</em> schedule for once. After all, she’ll be tending the fire during the evening. There’s no need for her to split her time.</p><p>And her ungrateful brother! He should be proud to have such a willing pupil! He’s being selfish! That’s what it is! The Eternal Flame <em>adores</em> him! It listens to no fairy the way it listens to him - not even their mother. Rachel has heard her say so herself. He’s turned it against Rachel! Set her up to fail!</p><p>Kurt is about to become king, but that doesn’t mean he should get to have all the glory for himself!</p><p>“You know, I have a golden opportunity to run and tell Mother that you’ve been fraternizing with our mortal enemy.” Rachel’s smile grows wicked when Kurt’s wings flush a fiery crimson. “I can’t even begin to imagine what she might do to you … or to <em>him</em><em>.</em>”</p><p>Kurt tries to swallow back his anger so that he can think clearly, find a way to reason with his sister, but his mind is too clouded by the injustice of being blackmailed by the one person he’d always considered his best and closest friend.</p><p>“How dare you?” Kurt growls. “You horrible little traitor!”</p><p> Rachel gasps, her expression switching from devious to hurt, then to cold in seconds.</p><p>“<em>I’m</em> not the traitor here!” she yells. “<em>You</em> are! You’re going to be king! What did you think you were doing with that … that <em>filth</em>?”</p><p>The flame roars, the same licks that had reached out to comfort Kurt reaching for Rachel on his behalf, ready to throttle her. But Kurt doesn’t let it. She’s not strong enough yet to withstand the full force of the flame. He takes a single step forward and slaps her across the face. Rachel’s head flies to one side, her hand coming up to cover the red handprint on her cheek. Behind her, in response to Kurt’s fury, the Eternal Flame climbs up until boughs above them catch the blaze.</p><p>Kurt had never before laid a hand on his sister in anger. Her eyes pop, overwhelmed with shock more than pain. She turns back to her brother, her eyes focusing first on the burning branches above them, then the simmering fire reflected in his blown, obsidian pupils.</p><p>“Don’t you ever …” he says, punctuating the words with a threatening calm, “<em>EVER</em> … call him that again. Do you understand me?”</p><p>Rachel stumbles back, her confidence gone, her lips quivering as she tries to speak. “I’m … I’m going to te-tell mother …”</p><p>“Fine! Run and tell mother! Tell her right now! Tell her everything! Tell her …!”</p><p>“Tell me what?” Kurt hears his mother’s voice descend upon them, steeped in her unmistakable authority. She settles between them, looking from son to daughter, trying to make sense of the tension in the cove that has turned the flame completely black. “Rachel! What are you doing out of your room when you had strict orders to stay inside? And Kurt, what is the meaning of setting the trees on fire? Think of all the animals, my love! The birds in their nests! The chipmunks in their burrows!”</p><p>Kurt and Rachel stare at one another, frozen. But Rachel regains her composure while Kurt loses his completely.</p><p>“Kurt?” Elizabeth starts with her son when she notices the change in his attitude from fierce to frightened. “Was there something you wanted Rachel to tell me?”</p><p>Rachel’s lip curls with amusement. No longer concerned with the sting in her cheek, she prepares to snitch on her brother, tell their mother <em>everything,</em> in the most vivid detail she can think up.</p><p>But Kurt beats her to it.</p><p>“I don’t want to be king!” he cries, dropping to his knees. “I want to remain a prince and fall in love, tend the Eternal Flame at night for the rest of my life! Please, Mother? I’ll do whatever you say as long as I get to stay this way! As long as I get to have love, Mother! Please? I beg of you!”</p><p>His pleas die and sobs take over. His mother kneels beside him, gathers him in her arms while Rachel looks on with mouth agape.</p><p>“You … you <em>knew</em>?” Rachel says, falling quickly to her knees, ready to beg her mother’s forgiveness.</p><p>“Of course I knew!” Elizabeth scolds her daughter. “And how dare you torment your brother when you knew he was in pain!”</p><p>Elizabeth wraps her arms around Kurt tighter as her son cries.</p><p>“Now, Kurt … darling,” she says, stroking his hair, “we talked about this. I know how you feel. Believe me, I do. But no matter what, you will become king during the eclipse, and there is nothing that you or I can do to stop it, no power in heaven or on earth, my love. I am sorry.”</p><p>Kurt sobs harder. He had hoped that his mother, with all of her infinite power, might have a solution. That she might take pity on him and leave him be. Elizabeth shakes her head with disapproval at his wailing, pulling Kurt’s face up so she can look into his eyes.</p><p>“You have to stop this childish blubbering and grow up, my love,” she says – her tone stern but with a vein of regret that runs deep within. “There comes a time when we must put away childish things … like <em>love</em> … and do what is right. This is your time now.” She wipes the tears from his cheeks with her fingers and cups his chin in her hand. “Don’t be so heartbroken. <em>Embrace</em> it. Embrace your duty and your power and your destiny. You may not be able to keep the love of this one you hold so dear, but you have the love of your entire kingdom. Isn’t that enough?”</p><p>Kurt looks into his mother’s eyes, silently imploring, but he can’t tell if she actually believes what she’s saying. It’s pointless though, because there’s no arguing with her. Even if she had the power to help him, he doesn’t think she would. Everything has a time, a season, a way in which it must be.</p><p>And this is one of those.</p><p>She has no intention of interfering, even if his grief turns him inside out.</p><p>He nods once, sniffing back his remaining tears. “Yes, Mother. It is enough.”</p><p>“That’s my son,” she says, kissing him on the forehead. She plucks a blade of grass from his hair and tosses it, watching as it flutters through the air to the ground. She surveys the area where it lands, the grass tall and lush … except for one area close by where it has flattened.</p><p>Crushed in the shape of two bodies.</p><p><em>He must have been here</em>, she thinks. <em>Rachel must have caught them</em><em> kissing or </em><em>…</em></p><p>Elizabeth frowns. She knows she didn’t talk to him about this before - the facts of life and all of that. But that’s only because she thought it was understood. It wasn’t a priority. She’d have time to address it after his coronation - namely because it would be something he more than likely wouldn’t partake in. As disappointed as she is with her son, she is <em>livid</em> with her daughter for sneaking out and spying. But this isn’t the time for anger. There needs to be peace between them before Kurt’s transformation. These bad feelings have lingered long enough.</p><p>“I think that for tonight, we should all three tend the fire and meet the morning together,” Elizabeth says, helping her son to his feet and gesturing for her daughter to come near. Rachel stands, but keeps her eyes cast to her clasped hands as she approaches her mother and brother. “We have so little time left together,” Elizabeth adds. “After the eclipse, a great many things will change. Let us spend this time together as a family who loves one another. Agreed?”</p><p>“Agreed,” Kurt says softly, knowing it’s what he is expected to say.</p><p>“Agreed,” Rachel mumbles, peeking at her brother, who glares at her.</p><p>“Good.” Elizabeth scoots her children toward the fire.</p><p>Kurt doesn’t want to be out in the cove tending the flame. He wants to retire to his room and weep properly. But he comforts himself with the thought that this gives him the opportunity to keep an eye on his sister, in case she gets it into her head to try and elaborate to their mother who this love of his life really is.</p><p>***</p><p>Blaine and Trent swim to the undersea kingdom together in stiff but companionable silence. Trent doesn’t ask Blaine for an explanation of what he witnessed in the meadow, and Blaine doesn’t offer one. Initially, Trent felt betrayed, finding Blaine with a fairy, obviously having spent the evening being intimate while a huge battle had raged below the sea. But now, as they head back to the castle, back to Malek and a full war council (who will more than likely crucify Blaine if they find out about his new love), Trent feels strangely protective. Enemy or not, Kurt loves Blaine. He obviously doesn’t judge him their differences. He makes Blaine happy.</p><p>Even if their affair only lasts one more night and they never see each other again, Trent doesn’t want anyone ruining it.</p><p>Luckily, Trent is the only other sprite who knows, and he intends on keeping his lips sealed.</p><p>As they swim closer to the ocean floor, Blaine sees the devastation the jellyfish army wrought – homes destroyed, the castle gates torn apart, the coral garden singed black and marked with tendril-shaped scars. He doesn’t see any bodies, though they could have been collected already and moved out of sight, awaiting burial.</p><p>Blaine doesn’t stall. He doesn’t hide. He walks into the castle and straight to the throne room. He hears overlapping voices argue, layering one on top of the other, growing louder and louder as a new disgruntled voice chimes in.</p><p>With so much talking, Blaine wonders who could possibly be listening?</p><p>“So you're not dead after all,” Malek says with thick contempt the moment Blaine’s footsteps echo inside the crowded throne room. “And it seems you were wrong, my son.” The cacophony of voices fall silent when the king speaks, everyone waiting on the beveled edge to see what he has to say. “There <em>was</em> a jellyfish army, and they did indeed attack …”</p><p>“I know, Father, but …”</p><p>“And when they did,” Josiah, the king’s steward, cuts in, “<em>you</em> were nowhere to be found.”</p><p>Blaine resists the urge to throw him a look, his attention spent solely on his father.</p><p>“Where did you run off to, my son?” Malek asks.</p><p>“Father, I …”</p><p>“I’ll tell you where he was!” Hunter’s voice echoes from the doorway as he rushes to the throne and bows before the king. “He was out beyond the forbidden waters, <em>making love</em> to a fire fairy!”</p><p>The silence in the room shatters, raised voices aiming remarks of disgust and incredulity Blaine’s way.</p><p>“Is this true?” Malek asks, his voice a signal that quiets the muttering.</p><p>Blaine’s eyes scan the room, scans the faces of those already judging him. If he ever had any chance of proving himself worthy of being king, that chance has just been lost.</p><p>By his reckoning, he has nothing left to lose.</p><p>“Yes, my king,” Blaine admits. “It is true.”</p><p>“What?” Malek roars, his voice rising above the gasps and hisses that follow Blaine’s confession. “Traitor!”</p><p>“No!” Blaine counters in an equally loud and commanding voice. “We are not at war with the fire fairies! There has been no battle between us and their kingdom for countless generations! Prince Kurt and I are in love!”</p><p>“What <em>love</em>?” Hunter asks with a snide chuckle. “Did he tell you that he loved you?”</p><p>“As a matter of fact, he did!” Blaine defends firmly since, in this, he has no doubts.</p><p>“The fire fairies are devious. Manipulative. He’s lowering your defenses, making you vulnerable. They’ve probably been planning some sort of attack for a while now, and you walked right into their trap!”</p><p>“What are you talking about?” Blaine asks. “What <em>trap</em>? How can you believe that? The fire fairies can’t even come under the water or they’ll die! How exactly did he lure me into a trap? How are they going to invade our kingdom!?”</p><p>“They’ve been our mortal enemies for <em>centuries</em>!” Hunter grandstands instead of offering up answers in an attempt to sway those gathered to his cause. “And it seems they’ve found a weakness.” He waves a hand in Blaine’s direction.</p><p>“Yes,” Josiah agrees, standing with his son. “I think the fire fairies have lived comfortably in our good graces long enough. It’s time to take care of that threat once and for all!”</p><p>“No!” Blaine charges the older sprite, stopping nose to nose since he arrogantly does not back down in the presence of the impassioned prince. “I won’t let you go near them! They’ve done nothing to us! Why should we be enemies of the fire fairies?” Blaine turns to his father, who looks at his son with only a vague interest. “Why do we engage in all these battles? These feuds need to end! Some of them are so ancient that no one even remembers how they started, or why! There is no reason at all for this irrational hate! We need to stop this isolation! We need to bring our races together, not keep the world at arm’s length!”</p><p>Blaine watches his father, lost in thought. He walks toward him with fearful optimism, hoping some of his words might finally be sinking in.</p><p>Malek stretches his tentacles and takes hold of the floor beneath him. He moves his hulking body, using his tentacles as leverage. He circles his mass around to address those waiting patiently to see how the Sea King will respond to his son. There are many in the hall blindly loyal to the king, but equally as many eager for the start of Prince Blaine’s reign. Malek knows all eyes are on him. He sighs heavily, as he is want to do when he feels that his son has said or done something irritating and ignorant – which is quite often.</p><p>“From this day forward,” Malek proclaims in a booming voice, “Prince Blaine is an enemy of this kingdom …”</p><p>Trent gasps. Hunter and Josiah pat one another on the back, matching grins plastered to their conniving faces. The assembly explodes into an uproar of dueling arguments, rising higher and higher to be heard. Amid the chaos, Blaine stares silently at his father. Of all the things he ever imagined his father capable of, he never dreamed this.</p><p>“He will be imprisoned in the dungeon as a traitor,” Malek finishes. “Guards, arrest him.”</p><p>“No!” Trent yells, drawing his weapon, but Blaine leaps on him, holding his hands steady.</p><p>“I had hoped for so much for you, my son,” Malek says, turning away from the skirmish the way the old king does every time he dismisses his son.</p><p>“But, the kingdom, my lord,” Josiah speaks up with cocky assurance, “will need a new king by the eclipse. Whatever shall we do now with the only heir to the throne disavowed?” His eyes find Blaine, huddled beside his friend, glaring him down as the royal guards begin to close in around them.</p><p>“The coronation will still take place,” Malek says importantly, “on schedule, when I will crown Lord Trent King of the Realm.”</p><p>Trent’s jaw drops. He nearly fumbles his weapon. Blaine turns his way, a proud smile on his face.</p><p>“Go, Trent,” he whispers, winking at his gobsmacked friend.</p><p>“No!” Hunter screams. “But … but <em>I’m</em> supposed to be next in line for the throne!”</p><p>“Well, <em>I</em> am,” Josiah mentions, annoyed at being overlooked, “but I was going to hand the honor over to my son, of course.”</p><p>“<em>I</em> am the king,” Malek says in a bored manner, as if nothing taking place in his throne room actually concerns him. “<em>I</em> decide who gets the crown. If I can take it away from my son, I can give it to whomever I chose. Trent has repeatedly proven himself loyal, obedient, fair-minded and just. <em>He</em> will be the new king.”</p><p>“No!” Hunter complains, storming forward. His father grabs his arm, tries to restrain him, hissing an overly conspicuous, <em>“Shut up!”</em></p><p>“I will not <em>shut</em> <em>up</em>!” Hunter shouts, pulling away from his father and barreling toward Trent, shielded behind armed guards. “I worked too hard for too long to be passed over like this!”</p><p>“Worked hard at what?” Blaine asked, narrowing his eyes at Hunter’s spontaneous confession. “What did you do?”</p><p>“Those asinine jellyfish!” Hunter bellows, flailing left and right at anyone who approaches. “I did not do all of this so that this blubbering pile of fish guts …” he stabs a finger in Trent’s direction “… could become king over me!”</p><p>Hunter pulls out a knife and lunges at Trent, trying to impale him from beyond the row of guards - no longer the smooth talking, contemptible fiend he had been, but now a desperate, unhinged villain. He swipes the knife through the air without aim or control, and slices one of the guards in the arm.</p><p>“Traitors,” Malek mutters beneath his breath, turning a little of his attention back to the sprite attempting to assassinate his new heir apparent. “Arrest him as well … him and his horrid father.”</p><p>The guards forget about Blaine and rush Hunter. He kicks and punches as they grab at his arms and legs. A few of his strikes land, but not effectively against guards in armor. They easily subdue him. They drag him from the throne room as he screams: “Stop! Put me down! <em>I’m</em> the new king! ME! I’ve proven myself worthy! I deserve this! Put … me … down! I order you!”</p><p>“And what about Prince Blaine?” Trent asks, protecting his friend from the circle of guards. “He was right all along about the jellyfish.”</p><p>“Hmmm …” Malek shakes his bulky head “… be that as it may, his association with the fire fairy cannot be overlooked. My original ruling stands. He will be imprisoned for his crime … <em>indefinitely</em>.”</p><p>Guards march forward to claim Blaine again, but Trent pushes in front of him, trying to hold them back.</p><p>“No! I refuse to be king!” Trent yells, arms outstretched to block Blaine. The guards, flummoxed by whether or not they should physically remove Trent, their soon-to-be-king, stand fast and await orders. “I only recognize <em>one</em> prince in our kingdom!” Trent declares. “There can be no other king in our realm but Blaine!”</p><p>Malek opens his mouth to speak but Blaine puts up a hand to stop him. He doesn’t expect his father to abide by his wishes, but the Great King sits back on his massive tentacles and watches the drama unfold.</p><p>“You wish to honor me?” Blaine asks his friend.</p><p>“Of course I do,” Trent replies.</p><p>“You will still do what I command?”</p><p>“Always, my prince,” Trent promises, his voice the epitome of despair.</p><p>“Then do one last thing for me.” Blaine rounds in front of him and places a hand on Trent’s shoulder.</p><p>“Anything.” Trent returns the gesture. Their whole friendship, the whole of their lives spent together, comes down to this one request.</p><p>Trent would stake his life on it.</p><p>“Rule in my stead. Be a wise and fair king …” Blaine leans his forehead against Trent’s “… and take care of yourself, buddy.”</p><p>Blaine gives Trent’s shoulder a squeeze, then lets go and backs away. The guards gather around him, one on each side, ahead and behind.</p><p>“Your Highness?” the lead guard addresses Blaine kindly and he nods.</p><p>With a final sweep of the throne room, sparing not a single glance for his father, Blaine surrenders and walks proudly from the hall.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Blaine paces the floor of his cell - back and forth, back and forth - trying to figure a way out. He's never been trapped in a place or a situation that he couldn't escape, but his father might have him beat this time. The dungeons are in the lowest part of the castle, beneath the sea floor. It has multiple levels and spirals down, down, down, like the inverted cone of a conch shell. His cell is on the upper level – a simple recess cut into smooth rock. It's long enough for him to lie down on the floor, but shallow width-wise. In front of him - a single door of coral bars and beyond that, two armed guards who no longer recognize him as heir to the throne.</p><p>In his many explorations of the castle growing up, Blaine made it a point not to go down into the dungeons. This is the kind of place Kurt probably imagines when he said he thought the ocean was dark and spooky. This <em>is</em> dark and spooky, and cold – so much colder than any other spot in the ocean Blaine has ever traveled to. But it's the silence that bothers him the most. Even in the tranquil waters, he could hear the swaying of plants, the darting of fins beating against the water, the tides rushing in and out. Down in the dungeon, the thick walls dampen the noises from outside. All he hears as he shuffles about are his footsteps against the stone, his breathing, his heartbeat …</p><p>The dungeons are reserved for the worst villains in the realm. Most prisoners go mad within a matter of months.</p><p>Some of the prison guards do as well.</p><p>He tries to let his mind wander to thoughts of Kurt and their night together. Being with him had been more incredible than he dreamed it would be. Kurt is beautiful, soft, and so full of fire. Every sound he makes, every touch of his skin is like immaculate music. But it's not for superficial reasons that making love to Kurt had been so amazing.</p><p>It is because Kurt loves Blaine.</p><p>He’d said it. Now Blaine has the memory of those words to carry him forever.</p><p>But it also made rotting away in this cell that much more agonizing.</p><p>He wants to slap himself hard for believing that he could have Kurt, that the two of them could bring their people together and begin an era of peace. That his father might accept him and Kurt, that he might even be proud of him for finding a way to bring their races together.</p><p>It is plain to Blaine now that there will never be peace between them - he and his father. </p><p>And there is little hope that he'll see Kurt again.</p><p>His father was right. He is a disappointment. And useless to boot.</p><p>At least, with the true traitors behind the jellyfish attacks behind bars, the fairies are safe.</p><p>Maybe it would have been better if Blaine had never traveled through the forbidden waters and went to the cove. Maybe meeting Kurt was a mistake. But it's a mistake he doesn't regret. Not for a minute. Not even locked up in this cell for life.</p><p>Blaine hears footsteps and his ears perk up. It can't already be time for a changing of the guard. He peeks out through the coral bars, but they're woven so tight together that little can be seen through the gaps.</p><p>"Stand aside," a voice commands. "I have orders to relocate the prisoner <em>immediately</em>."</p><p>Blaine's heart leaps when he hears Trent's voice.</p><p>"But, sir," the first guard says, "we have orders from King Malek to keep the prisoner …"</p><p>"Yes," Trent cuts in, "and in a day <em>I</em> will be king. For now, I carry his message. He wants the prisoner moved and he has sent me to do it."</p><p>Blaine smirks. Trent might be overdoing it a little, but he's not complaining. Hand it to Trent to come to his rescue.</p><p>He'll never let Blaine live it down.</p><p>"With all due respect, sir," the second guard starts, but Trent doesn't let him get farther than that.</p><p>"Would you like to go up to the throne room right now and tell King Malek that you questioned his orders?" Blaine can hear Trent move closer to the two guards, his voice dropping to a lower, more dangerous register. "From what I've seen, he's in an exceptionally foul mood. I'm pretty sure he will not take well to having his commands second guessed."</p><p>In the silence that follows, Blaine hears an audible gulp. It makes Blaine shake his head. His father rules more by fear than respect, but whatever works.</p><p>"Wh-where is the prisoner being moved to?" the first guard stutters as he hands his keys over.</p><p>"He’s been ordered to a cell further below," Trent answers, the iciness in his voice striking Blaine straight through his soul.</p><p><em>Further below</em>.</p><p>Down in the deep.</p><p>Where prisoners are locked away, and then forgotten.</p><p>Maybe this isn't a ploy like Blaine originally thought. Being locked farther below sounded like something his father would do. He just can't believe that it's an order Trent would consent to carry out.</p><p>Malek probably didn't give Trent a choice. Possibly Malek opted for something worse, and Trent negotiated up to this.</p><p>The lock clicks, the door swings open, and Trent steps inside - his face stony, his eyes hard. And Blaine gets ready to put up a fight.</p><p>A fight against his best friend. He never thought he would see the day.</p><p>Trent sees Blaine stare at him from the far corner of his cell, hands up for defense, preparing to charge … and he smiles. He puts a finger to his lips to keep Blaine from speaking. It takes a moment for Blaine to understand, but when he does, he gets angrier before he calms down.</p><p>Trent almost had him there. In any other situation, Blaine would give him the hardest punch in the arm he could.</p><p>"Come along," Trent commands loudly, grabbing Blaine by the elbow and dragging him from the cell. Blaine struggles in the presence of the guards for effect. He kicks out, and the guards shuffle out of the way.</p><p>“Do you need some assistance, Lord Trent?” one guard asks. “We can accompany you and the prisoner. Help keep him out of trouble.”</p><p>Trent’s hand, locked on Blaine’s elbow, tightens, and Blaine’s heart double-thumps in his chest.</p><p>“Not at all,” Trent says with a casual confidence Blaine has never heard from his friend before. “I can handle him on my own, thank you.” He brings Blaine around harshly, leading him down the hall and out of sight.</p><p>Blaine mellows when they turn the corner, but Trent keeps a hold of his arm in case they run into anyone else along the way. They walk through the dungeon, traveling deeper and deeper into the belly of the prison, along curling corridors until they are near enough to the bottom that no light reaches them and they are less likely to be heard.</p><p>"You're going to have to go out through the sewer," Trent says in a hushed voice, eyes glowing blue in the dark. "There are guards all around the castle, inside and out. There's no way you'd be able to escape that way."</p><p>Blaine nods. "Thanks," he says, steeling himself to go, but Trent puts his hands on Blaine's shoulders, holding the focus of his glowing golden eyes.</p><p>"Blaine, you have to get to the fire fairies. Your father is gathering an army – every soldier he can. They're going to attack the cove." Trent pauses to take a breath, unintentionally prolonging Blaine's suffering. "They have orders to leave none that they find alive."</p><p>“What?” Blaine's vision suddenly blurs. He sees nothing but a haze in front of his eyes - thick, black smoke billowing up towards the sky. And as it starts to clear - the carnage. Hundreds of fairies drowned, hundreds of sprites burned. They are equally numbered, equally matched as far as Blaine can tell. If there is a battle, it isn't going to end with anyone the victor.</p><p>His father's war will wipe out both races.</p><p>"But … but Hunter …" Blaine stammers, still unable to comprehend his dad's purpose in attacking the fairies.</p><p>"Both Hunter and his father have been imprisoned for treason," Trent explains, "but it doesn't seem to matter." He shakes his head, sympathizing and equally confused. "It doesn't make sense. After hearing about you and Kurt, your dad got it in his head that the fire fairies <em>have</em> to be destroyed. It's going to take him the day to gather the numbers that he needs, but he's planning to attack during the coronation, before I am crowned king. There's nothing I can do."</p><p>"I have to warn them," Blaine says, staring stunned at the dark space surrounding him, feeling more trapped than before.</p><p>"Go." Trent embraces his friend, patting him heartily on the back. "Go save your fairy."</p><p>Blaine returns Trent's embrace, then races down the spiral staircase that leads into the furthest reaches of the dungeon. Even for creatures that live in the dark, this part of the castle is a never-ending nightmare, and Blaine hopes to never visit it again. He focuses his every thought on Kurt. He has to reach Kurt. And if he has to travel through the dark to get to Kurt's light, he'll do it a thousand times over.</p><p>***</p><p>The sewer lets him out far away from the castle. From this distance, he can see the ruined gates, the scarred coral, the mounting army preparing for battle, and he knows that, locked in his throne room, Malek is looking out with satisfaction at the thought of the destruction he is about to cause. Blaine has heard his father talk maliciously about the fire fairies before.</p><p>He knows that the king has been longing to demolish that foe for years.</p><p>Blaine pushes off the sea floor and swims to the surface without anyone the wiser. He always thought that being relieved of the leadership and authority of becoming king would feel like a weight off his shoulders, but he feels heavier as he leaves the castle behind. He worries for his friend, about to become king in his place. He worries for his kingdom, entering a needless battle. He even worries for his father. Whatever happened to make him the bitter, heartless sprite he is now, Blaine wishes he knew. He can't imagine that his father was always this way.</p><p>But becoming king - <em>that</em> part of Blaine's life is over for him, and there is nothing he can do to get it back. The only choice he has is to move on with his life – and moving on means Kurt, in whatever way he can have him.</p><p>Right now, his sole purpose is to warn Kurt that his father's army is headed their way, and they're out for blood.</p><p>***</p><p>"So, when is your sprite going to get here, huh?" Rachel teases, flitting around the fire while Kurt sits on the branch, staring into the water, his feet grazing the surface. He thinks he can feel it – that cool comfort Blaine talked about, that solitude the water gives him. Kurt thought he would never find it. Blaine belongs to the water; Kurt does not.</p><p>But now, Blaine is a part of Kurt. And just as Kurt's body burns Blaine less and less, Kurt can find the allure of the water.</p><p>Even if he can't have Blaine, maybe he can have that.</p><p>A whole day has gone by without a word from the kingdom beneath the sea. Kurt knows that Blaine can't contact him till nightfall, if he gets the chance to contact him at all, but the torture of waiting wears Kurt down emotionally until the slightest thought of Blaine's touches or his kisses makes Kurt cry. All Kurt knows is there had been a battle beneath the ocean. What if it was still going on when Blaine got there? What if he had been hurt … or even <em>killed</em>?</p><p>Kurt would like to believe he'd know if Blaine died, that he would feel it like the tearing of his own heart from his chest. But there is no way for him to truly know until Blaine comes back. Unless he tries to go under water.</p><p>Kurt doesn't have enough faith in the water yet to try.</p><p>Rachel throws her flowers into the flame, not really paying attention to it. It reaches out and flicks her on the butt.</p><p>"Ow!" she yelps, rubbing her sore bottom. She catches sight of her melancholy brother dangling his feet and shudders. "Can you not do that? It gives me the creeps!"</p><p>Kurt bites his lip. He didn't want Rachel there with him, but his mother had insisted – a fostering of goodwill, she’d said. But Kurt is sure she did it to keep him from seeing his love again. Out of spite, Kurt sticks his feet in the water up to his ankles. Rachel lets out a high, trilling scream.</p><p>"Stop!" she squeals. "Pull them out, pull them out, pull them out!"</p><p>Kurt closes his eyes, letting the cold creep up his legs to his knees, reaching for him beneath his skin. A hand wraps around his ankle and gives a gentle tug, and Kurt jumps. He flies straight up, pulling a giggling Blaine free of the water and dropping him unceremoniously on the grass.</p><p>"Blaine!" Kurt screams, tackling him to the ground, holding him tight, not concerned about the drops of water chilling him to the bone. "I thought … I thought maybe … oh, Blaine!"</p><p>Blaine feels Kurt's chest heave, hears the fairy cry into his skin. Blaine puts his arms around him.</p><p>"Shhh …" He strokes Kurt's hair and kisses his cheek. "I'm here. It's all right. Everything is all right."</p><p>It breaks Blaine's heart that those sentiments aren't entirely true, but for now they are. While they hold one another, everything is alright.</p><p>"So <em>this</em> is the water sprite you're so in love with?" Rachel groans, hovering overhead.</p><p>Blaine feels Kurt's body deflate against him and he tries not to laugh. Kurt reaches a hand up to wipe tears from his cheeks without his sister seeing. When he’s regained his composure, he turns to face her, her snobbish air tarnished by the blush covering her entire body.</p><p>"Blaine, this is my sister, Princess Rachel," Kurt mutters, motioning to his sister, who performs a clumsy, mid-air curtsy. "Rachel, this is Prince Blaine, heir to the Undersea Realm."</p><p>"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," Rachel says sweetly.</p><p>"The pleasure is all mine," Blaine returns, kneeling to bow.</p><p>"Don't encourage her," Kurt grumbles, "or you'll make her feel important, and we'll never be rid of her. I was hoping to get a little time with my prince alone."</p><p>"You can have all the time you want with me," Blaine says, trying to sound upbeat, "because I'm not anymore."</p><p>Kurt's brow furrows. "Not what?"</p><p>"Not a prince.”</p><p>"Not a … what happened!?"</p><p>Blaine sighs. He wishes he had the whole night to explain, wrapped naked in Kurt's embrace where he can kiss away the fairy's confusion, along with all of his pent up anxiety and fear.</p><p>"We need to talk," he says. "Something terrible is going to happen, and every fire fairy is in danger."</p><p>"Rachel, go back to the flame," Kurt commands, Blaine’s serious tone chilling him to the bone. "I need to talk to Blaine alone."</p><p>"No!" Rachel stomps her foot defiantly. "I’m princess! Second in line to the throne after <em>you</em>! If the fire fairies are in danger, I want to know why!"</p><p>"It's all right. She might as well find out now." Blaine holds Kurt at arm’s length. He would much rather embrace him while he tells him, but he needs Kurt to see the truth in his eyes. "We were caught," he says, pausing a moment, waiting for Kurt to understand.</p><p>Kurt gasps. "Wha---who!? Did your friend …?"</p><p>"No." Blaine runs his hands up and down Kurt's arms to soothe the rage building beneath his own skin. He doesn’t feel like reliving the past few hours, and there are some parts of that tale he wants to tell Kurt when they’re alone. "No, not Trent. Someone else. Someone who used to be my friend, who's been trying to get the crown for ages. But he doesn't matter. My father found out about us and he took away my claim to the throne."</p><p>"Who's going to be king now?" Kurt asks, even though deep down he knows that question isn't necessarily important. But it’s a placeholder, giving him time to come to terms with everything.</p><p>"Trent is." Blaine smiles automatically at the thought of his best friend becoming king. "But my father is <em>furious</em>. He wants revenge."</p><p>"Against you?"</p><p>"Yeah, against me," Blaine answers dryly, "but also you and your mother, and every other fire fairy he can find. He's gathering an army. During Trent's coronation tomorrow, they're going to attack. He wants to kill you all."</p><p>Kurt stumbles back from Blaine's hold on his arms. "But … but why would he want us dead? What have we done to him?"</p><p>"I don't know. I don't understand it. I think I know someone who might. And maybe, if we can find out the answer, we might be able to find a way to stop this war before it starts. But we have to go now. We're running out of time."</p><p>"But … the flame." Kurt turns towards the fire burning a gloomy blue. "I have to tend it. If it goes out …"</p><p>"I'll do it," Rachel says. Kurt and Blaine look at her, surprised as they had both temporarily forgotten her.</p><p>"But you can't! It’s too dangerous! You're not strong enough!"</p><p>"I'm as strong as I'm ever going to be! I'm taking over tomorrow anyway."</p><p>"With Mother's help and guidance! I can't let you …"</p><p>"Kurt!" Rachel raises her voice. "You're running out of time! If I can't do it, then I'll call for help, but I need to give you a head start. Once Mother finds out about the army, you know what she's going to do."</p><p>"Yes. I know." Kurt bows his head. Blaine looks on befuddled.</p><p>“What will she do?” he asks.</p><p>“If the queen finds out about the coming army, she’ll attack first,” Kurt explains. “She’ll extend the power of the Eternal Flame beneath the water. She’ll put all her power behind it till it burns brighter than the sun.” He swallows hard. “She’ll eliminate every creature she can reach – malignant and benign.”</p><p>Blaine chokes on air. “Kurt! We have to …!”</p><p>"All right, all right." Kurt takes a deep breath. "Rachel, you’re in charge. But you have to promise that if it gets too hard for you, you'll call for help."</p><p>"I will," Rachel says with a solemn smile.</p><p>Kurt heads for a log on the far side of the meadow. He returns quickly with an armful of burgundy leaves and drops them on the ground at her feet.</p><p>"If you need help, put these in the flame. They'll turn the fire a brilliant gold that can be seen for miles. Burn these, and I'll return."</p><p>"I will." Rachel hugs Kurt tight. "Now, go. Find a way to stop this war."</p><p>"I will." Kurt kisses his sister's hair. "I promise."</p><p>Kurt turns to the fire, morphing in shades of light to dark green - colors of fear and confusion. Kurt puts his arms around it. “Take care of my sister,” he whispers. It flickers, then becomes silver.</p><p>The color of Kurt’s wings.</p><p>Rachel starts gathering up leaves, waving shyly at Blaine, who winks back before diving into the water. Kurt takes to the air. He looks down at the cove, the flame, and his little sister bravely tending the Eternal Flame. To the east, he sees his mother's palace, shining like a flame itself, a pyre of ivory stone.</p><p>"I'll be back," he says. Turning toward the ocean, he spots Blaine cutting sleekly through the water. Kurt beats his wings and, staying above the spitting surf and the rolling waves, follows the sprite out to sea.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The frigid breeze off the water stings Kurt’s wings, but he pushes on, even when he begins to fear that they will become brittle and snap. The farther away from the Eternal Flame he flies, the colder he feels, as if he’s losing all the heat in his body. He has heat of his own, of course, but it’s not the same. Fire fairies come from the flame. It’s their source of life. His mother always warned him to stay in close proximity to it.</p><p>He wonders how far away from it he can go and still feel its warmth.</p><p>He tries not to think about it. Instead, he focuses on Blaine swimming below him, his body cutting through the water as he zips beneath the surface. Kurt has not seen him like this before – his strong arms and legs propelling him along, the line of his back straight so he can slice through the swells. Blaine is handsome on land, but he’s powerful in the sea.</p><p>A sea that is no longer safe for him.</p><p>Kurt wraps his arms around his torso and shivers, but thoughts of Blaine’s body keep him warm.</p><p>Blaine stops swimming so suddenly, Kurt flies past him about a mile before he can stop. Blaine breaks through the surface and calls up to his fairy.</p><p>“I’m looking for a big sea turtle! Do you happen to see her anywhere?”</p><p>Kurt looks around him at the water as far as he can see. There are only a few animals on the surface, though it would probably help Kurt if he knew what a sea turtle looked like.</p><p>“How will I know a sea turtle if I see one?” Kurt calls back.</p><p>“She’s large and round, with a broad, flat shell,” Blaine replies.</p><p>Kurt turns a full circle, surveying the animals he can see. There are four that fit that description, but he’s not too sure about any of them, and he doesn’t have time to be wrong.</p><p>“Here!” Kurt flies down to Blaine. He grabs the sprite’s arm and tugs. Blaine lifts his arms up so the fairy can loop his around his chest and lift him into the air. Kurt flies with Blaine into the sky and shows him the lay of the water.</p><p>“There!” Blaine points to the east. “Right on the surface, bobbing through the kelp! There she is!”</p><p>Kurt squints, looking at the creature sitting amid a massive bed of brown plant-looking things.</p><p>“Got it,” he says, setting Blaine back gently in the water.</p><p>Blaine takes Kurt’s arm before he can fly away and runs his hand along the fairy’s pale skin.</p><p>“You’re cold,” Blaine says, pressing his lips to the back of Kurt’s hand. It’s a small dot of warmth on a frigid landscape, but it’s enough to make Kurt want to go on.</p><p>“Yes, I am,” Kurt admits, “and I’m not getting any warmer staying here, so let’s go get to that turtle!”</p><p>Kurt shoots into the sky and takes off in the direction of the massive animal before Blaine can try to convince him to head back to land.</p><p>Kurt knows at this point it wouldn’t take much convincing.</p><p>They reach the kelp and find the turtle sitting within the thick ropes, nibbling on the leaves and soaking up the sun, eyes shut in peaceful repose.</p><p>“Oh great and powerful maiden of the sea!” Blaine starts as Kurt hovers nearby.</p><p>“Oh for crying out loud!” Sue exclaims, turning her prodigious girth in the direction of Blaine’s voice. “Nearly a hundred years I’ve gone without having to talk to any of your obnoxious kin, and now – twice in the space of a few days! What the heck do you want now, oh Fallen Sea Prince?” Blaine jerks at her taunt. The sea turtle smiles. “Yeah, yeah, I know all about that. You’ve lost your crown to your best friend. <em>Now</em> what are you going to do?”</p><p>“Ho---how did you know about that?” Blaine asks, embarrassed that word of his shame has gotten around so quickly.</p><p>“I have my sources,” Sue says with a wink. “None of which I’m at liberty to confirm or deny …” But she didn’t have to. Blaine has always suspected that a fish or two in their kingdom were spies for Sue. One in particular - a bubbly clown fish called Becky - seemed to have a similar calculating look as Sue does in her eyes. “So, tell me - who did I wrong in a past life to deserve the punishment of your company?”</p><p>“I have another question to ask you,” Blaine says.</p><p>“Obviously,” Sue remarks with a dramatic roll of her black eyes. She catches sight of the fire fairy hovering above her head and smirks. “Ahhh. So this is about him, huh? Your little porcelain prince?”</p><p>“P-p-pleased to make your acquaintance,” Kurt stutters, rubbing his arms to ward off the cold.</p><p>“Oh, you presume too much, little fairy,” she says, turning her attention back to Blaine. “What do you and twinkle toes want? I was hoping to nap for about fifty years, and you guys are kind of harshing my mellow.”</p><p>“My father has declared war on the fire fairies,” Blaine announces.</p><p>Sue scoffs and shakes her head. “Well, it took him long enough, I suppose,” she says, her voice more sad than sardonic, and Blaine knows he’s come to the right sea creature.</p><p>“The thing I don’t understand is <em>why</em>. He found out about us …” Blaine’s eyes find Kurt above his head, shivering violently. He frowns with worry at the bluish tinge to the fire fairy’s skin “… and he got angry, but why the full-scale invasion? Why this need to be rid of them?”</p><p>“Yes.” Kurt risks lowering himself so his voice can be heard. “What have we done that he feels the need to destroy us?”</p><p>Sue’s large eyes look up at the fairy, then down at the sprite.</p><p>“You don’t know?” she asks Blaine, who shakes his head. “And you don’t know either?” she asks Kurt, who shrugs with his arms still wrapped around his body. Sue blows out a breath. “You two are so vain!” the turtle scolds. “So vain and so selfish! And so ignorant! You are both princes of your kingdoms, about to be kings!” She stares at Blaine significantly. “At least, you <em>used</em> to be. And you know nothing about your history!”</p><p>“I’ve tried asking my mother!” Kurt cries in his defense. “Over and over! I’ve courted the depths of her anger and still I tried! But she will not tell me! There is no lore in our tomes, no other fairy who’s lived long enough to have seen it first hand! So how am I to find out!?”</p><p>Sue rolls her eyes up to Kurt, looking thoroughly unimpressed by his claims.</p><p>“And you, young water sprite. Have you asked your father, the Great King of the Sea, why this feud between your kingdoms has lasted so long?”</p><p>“No,” Blaine admits. “I have not.”</p><p>“And why not?” the turtle asks.</p><p>“Have you met my father?” Blaine counters with bitterness in his voice.</p><p>The turtle looks on him with remotely sympathetic eyes. “Fair enough.”</p><p>“But that is why we have sought you out, wise turtle!” Kurt tries. “To find the answer and stop this war!”</p><p>“I’m not sure the answer I have is going to help you,” Sue says. “In fact, it might make things worse.”</p><p>“How can things possibly get worse than all-out war?” Blaine asks, staring up at Kurt with deeper and deeper concern.</p><p>Sue sighs, paddling back and forth with her front flippers, stalling as she considers her answer. She’s usually not a creature concerned with delicacy. But this is a matter that even she agrees may require some.</p><p>“Your father, Malek,” she says, “and your mother, Elizabeth, were once much closer than you two could ever imagine.”</p><p>“How d-do you m-mean?” Kurt stutters, flitting over to a patch of sunlight, searching for warmth.</p><p>“The King of the Sea, and the Queen of the Fire Fairies are, alas, related.”</p><p>Kurt’s head snaps down as Blaine’s head snaps up, wide eyes locking.</p><p>“So, his father and my mother are … brother and sister?” Kurt asks.</p><p>“It’s a bit more complicated than that, fairy,” the turtle replies.</p><p>“My name is Kurt,” Kurt offers.</p><p>“Like I care,” Sue says. “Anyway, a long time ago, at the beginning of all things, your mother and Blaine’s father were one. As a single entity, your parents were all that is good in the world. They were love and hope and creation. They had power, yes, but they were fair-minded and just …” The turtle pauses to sigh. “And beautiful. So, so beautiful.”</p><p>“What … what happened to them?” Blaine asks, wishing he could hold Kurt close since he expects the worst from the sea turtle’s tale.</p><p>“The same thing that happens to all perfect things in the history of forever. I should know …” She tosses her head back with conceit. “The gods grew jealous of them, as gods tend to. Never happy unless they’re miserable, gods are. They lied to your parents – told them one was planning to break away from the other. Overthrow them. At first, Malek and Elizabeth didn’t believe it, so in love with each other they were. But slowly the voices of jealousy picked them apart, and they believed the lies so completely that they tore themselves in two. Malek’s hate became all-consuming - so large that it took the entire ocean to contain it. And Elizabeth’s hate burned within her until it spilled over and threatened to set everything ablaze. They created this world. It depends on their maintaining balance. If that balance is hate or love, it means nothing, just so long as one does not become more powerful than the other.”</p><p>“But … that’s going to change when my father attacks!” Blaine exclaims. “Neither the sprites nor the fairies will win!”</p><p>“Meh,” Sue says, dismissing Blaine’s concern with a shrug.</p><p>“How do we fix this?” Kurt asks.</p><p>“You can’t,” Sue says. Kurt gasps and Blaine glares, but the sea turtle only rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry, but you can’t. You can’t <em>fix</em> your parents. And as soon as those two unleash their fury, that will be the end of it.”</p><p>“The end of the water sprites and the fire fairies,” Blaine moans. “We know.”</p><p>“No, I mean the end of it <em>all</em>,” Sue says. “The whole gall-darn world.”</p><p>“What?” Kurt cries. <em>The end of the world? Of everything?</em><em> No! </em>He can’t even picture it.</p><p>“Yup. You’re going to have to start over somewhere else, on a place where fire and water can live together in peace, the way your parents did long ago.”</p><p>“You’re lying!” Blaine spits. “You’re playing games with us! If this battle means the end of the world, then why the hell are you so calm!?”</p><p>“Because, to be honest, I really don’t care,” Sue admits. “A sea turtle’s life is usually 100 years. I’m well beyond that, my tiny friend. If this is the end, that’s okay. I’ve lived long enough. I’ve had a good life. At least if I’m dead, then I might <em>finally</em> get some peace.”</p><p>“Where is this place?” Kurt asks, glowing red with shame at considering leaving his kingdom – his mother and sisters – to their perilous fates. “This place where Blaine and I can be together? Where we can start over?”</p><p>“Well, well, well.” Sue looks up at Kurt with a new-found respect in her cynical eyes while Kurt hides his from Blaine’s expression of shock. “Someone has a backbone now, don’t they? There is a field not too far from here, covered in white flowers made of both fire and water. They are always there, but they only bloom during the eclipse. They will release their pods into the night sky. If you catch one, it will carry you away to a star where the two of you can begin again.”</p><p>“You’re lying!” Blaine growls angrily. “There is no such place! You’re toying with us for your own amusement! I was stupid for thinking you’d actually give us a real answer!”</p><p>“You probably were,” Sue says, unfazed. “Believe what you want. Like I said, I couldn’t care less. I’m not the one about to lose the love of my life.” Sue looks at Kurt with oddly imploring eyes. “But take heed, little ones. Your time on this planet is growing short, so whatever you’re going to do, do it fast. As for me, I must bid you both adieu. I’m not particularly eager to see how this all turns out.”</p><p>Sue moves her flat fins, swirling the water in a whirlpool around her. It picks up speed, pushing Blaine farther and farther away. She ducks her head beneath the surface and disappears below the kelp. The water stops spinning, the kelp becomes calm.</p><p>And she does not resurface.</p><p>Kurt looks down at Blaine, the sprite’s golden eyes seething at the spot where the turtle had been.</p><p>“B-Blaine?” he calls softly.</p><p>Blaine doesn’t look up. “No,” he says. “I don’t believe that’s the answer. Running away? There has to be something else we can do.”</p><p>“But, what?” Kurt asks, berating himself silently for even considering it – escaping to a place where they could be together, like in his dream, at the price of leaving everyone else behind to die.</p><p>What a shameful king he’s going to be.</p><p>Kurt needs to find a way to get Blaine back on his throne. He deserves the station more.</p><p>“I don’t know yet.” Blaine looks up at Kurt, his gaze softening when he sees a frightened Kurt trembling in the air above him. “My father stopped listening. Why don’t we try your mother?”</p><p>“No!” Kurt cries. “No, Blaine! She’ll kill you if she finds out about us!”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Kurt.” Blaine reaches out a hand even though he knows he can’t risk touching Kurt while the fire fairy is so cold. “But it’s a chance we’ve got to take.”</p><p> ***</p><p>Rachel’s arms grow heavy from exhaustion as she dances, her movements slowing, the fire flickering weakly. But she has to keep going. She has to keep moving, keep singing. She pictures her brother and her mother in her head, twirling around on the wind, their effortless grace and beauty, the way they can turn the fire colors and make the flame bend. The mulberry leaves sit in the grass where she left them shortly after Kurt and his water sprite left. All she would have to do is retrieve a couple and toss them in the flame and her brother would come home. She knows it, but she refuses. She is not so much of a selfish, silly fairy as others think her. She knows exactly what is going on. She understands why her brother left.</p><p>Their kingdom is in danger, and Kurt went off to do the right thing.</p><p>He is acting like a king.</p><p>It is time she started being a better princess … and a better sister.</p><p>Rachel doesn’t blame him about the water sprite, either. The one thing she has always dreamed of is falling in love. Not a simple love. Those aren’t any fun. But a complicated, twisted, painful, all-consuming love. Something you burn to have. Something you would happily suffer for.</p><p>She owes Kurt more than she has ever given him. He has always been patient with her, unerringly kind, even when she didn’t give him any reason to be. If their mother finds out about Kurt leaving with his water sprite, she might hurt them.</p><p>She might even kill them.</p><p>Rachel wants to stop, wants to rest for a few moments, but the fire is dying, and if it goes out entirely, their mother will see. Rachel’s bleary mind comes up with a desperate solution. If Rachel could fuel the fire with her body, with her own internal flame, she could keep it lit long enough for Kurt to return.</p><p>She just has to be strong and not succumb to the flame.</p><p>Fire fairies come from the flame, and it’s to the flame they all return.</p><p> ***</p><p>Elizabeth gazes out the window of her palace, down to the water’s edge where her son and daughter diligently tend the Eternal Flame. There isn’t much time left for Kurt, and soon, there won’t be time left for Elizabeth at all. She’s not sure how she will tell her children this. Maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe she should quietly return to the fire when the time comes and let life continue on without her.</p><p>But now is not the time to think about that.</p><p>She sighs into the night, lets the sparkle from her own inner fire add to the landscape of stars. The fire’s pinkish hue licks at the sky, setting the surface of the water aglow. It is spectacular – so spectacular. She envies her son and daughter – their beauty and their youth. She envies Kurt most of all – at the beginning of his journey when hers is so close to an end. The only thing that he doesn’t have, that he desperately wants, is freedom. If he was any of her other children, she would let him go, let him be free to follow his whims and find love. An immense and incredible love like the one she had before … a long time ago.</p><p>As much as she hates to keep her eldest son a prisoner to their traditions and customs, it’s unavoidable. Elizabeth is tired, and regardless of the flame’s magic, she is growing older. An eternity in existence is too much, too long. She feels her own fire dimming as sadness clouds her heart. Soon, there will be little left of her but a memory.</p><p>A memory and her children.</p><p>Elizabeth gazes at the fire Kurt tends so well.</p><p>“The flame is beautiful tonight,” she says to her attendants, watching the flame dance where it hovers out of reach of the water. “But it seems so lonely … so sad.”</p><p>Elizabeth peers into the dark, trying to find her melancholy child whose sorrow influences the flame. The hue of the fire comes more clearly into view. That which she at first thought to be pink is actually red.</p><p>It’s red, and it’s crying.</p><p>“What?” Elizabeth leaps from her window and flies to the cove. She finds the fire burning on its branch, all alone. “Kurt?” she calls into the inky darkness. “Rachel? Darlings?” She spins in place, waiting for them to appear, but there isn’t a sign of her children anywhere. She puts a hand out to try and speak to the flame, see into its memory, but the flame begins to sputter. </p><p>Then suddenly, it burns out.</p><p>In its place lies a fairy - still and cold.</p><p>Elizabeth gasps, throwing a hand to her lips.</p><p>“No!” she sobs, each tear hitting the water and forming ripples, the sound echoing around the cove like the herald of an oncoming storm. “No!”</p><p>A legion of fairies answers her cries, flying down from the palace with weapons drawn. They fill the trees surrounding their grieving queen.</p><p>“What is it? What’s wrong? Your majesty? What has happened?” A chorus of tiny voices rises up around her. Cries start as more fairies crowd around and see the body of Rachel lying on the branch. “Oh no! It’s the princess Rachel! She’s dead! Rachel is dead! Where is the prince? The prince who will be our king? The prince is gone! Someone has killed the princess and kidnapped her brother!”</p><p>“Find him!” Elizabeth yells up, as if summoning the stars in the sky. “Find Kurt! Wherever he is! Whatever it takes! Bring him to me!”</p><p>“But where is he, my Queen?” one guard asks.</p><p>“Where will we begin to look?” pipes in another.</p><p>Elizabeth scans the ground, the sky, the water’s surface still upset by her tears.</p><p>The water - churning in the cove now that the fire has gone out.</p><p>No one but the water sprites would benefit from the loss of the Eternal Flame, or the death of their princess … and possibly their prince.</p><p>“The water sprites must have done this,” Elizabeth roars, turning to the body of her daughter lying before her. “They must have! We have no other enemies among the creatures of the earth. They’ve murdered my precious daughter and taken my son! And now they must pay!”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kurt rushes for the cove at break-neck speed in search of the flame to warm him, but he doesn’t feel its fire reaching out for him. He calls to it with his mind, tries to picture it dancing happily on its branch, but for all his beckoning, he hears nothing.</p><p>If Kurt didn’t know better, he would think the Eternal Flame had gone out.</p><p>He looks to the horizon when he feels the coming dawn wash over the underside of the world. He has to get back. He has to take over the flame from his sister and get Blaine deep enough below the water to escape the daylight. Then he has to try and convince his mother that an army of water sprites is planning to attack, <em>and</em> try to persuade her <em>not</em> to destroy every living thing in the ocean to evade them.</p><p>If he can accomplish all of that in the limited hours he has left before the eclipse, then he would deserve to be king.</p><p>Blaine stops to get his bearings, glancing up at Kurt to see if the fairy is any better off than before. Kurt’s skin is still snowy white, much paler than his normal pink pastel hue, and his lips look frighteningly blue. Kurt smiles when he catches Blaine’s gaze, showing his sprite that he need not fear for his safety. </p><p>It doesn’t work. There’s a panic in Kurt’s eyes that he can’t stamp down.</p><p>Kurt would have nothing to fear if he could just feel the Eternal Flame’s warmth again. They aren’t all that far from the cove now. It should overwhelm him with it’s heat from this close distance, with joy at his return, relief for how much it’s missed him.</p><p>Why is it not calling out to him?</p><p>“When we get back to shore, we need to check on Rachel first,” Kurt calls down to Blaine, clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering. “I need to make sure she’s okay.”</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Blaine yells back, giving Kurt a reassuring wink. “I’m sure she’s fine. After all, she never lit the leaves to signal you.”</p><p>“I know. Still, I’ll feel better knowing she’s okay.”</p><p>“Of course, my love.” Blaine dives beneath the swells and takes off toward land. Kurt flies after him, not willing to let the water sprite get the upper hand. He laughs and loop-de-loops in the air, allowing himself this time to relax while they’re alone over the ocean where he can convince himself that, for the moment, everything isn’t in mortal danger. He dares a bob down toward the water, reaching in to tug at Blaine’s hair. Blaine flips onto his back and laughs, thoroughly enjoying Kurt’s company.</p><p>He misses Trent. He misses his kingdom. To a degree, he misses his father.</p><p>But everything is careening out of control too fast, and Blaine has no foreseeable future to savor with Kurt, so he makes sure to keep these moments close to his heart and remember them, come what may.</p><p>Blaine sees Kurt hold his arms tight to his body, beating his fragile silvery wings against the ocean breeze, eyes fixed on the shoreline. He wants to stop again and tell Kurt everything is all right, but he knows Kurt won’t be settled until they reach the flame. They’re approaching the cove at quite a clip, and soon Kurt will have his reassurance – his sister back in his arms and the fire to warm his skin.</p><p>They reach the cove, and Kurt hurries to the branch, basking in the glow of the orange flame.</p><p>“Ahhh, thank goodness,” Blaine hears him mutter, rubbing his hands up and down his drenched skin, shaking off his wet wings and sighing as the water evaporates with the heat.</p><p>Blaine jumps over the log and into the pool, paddles cautiously over to Kurt. Something doesn’t feel right in the cove, but Blaine can’t seem to put his finger on it.</p><p>“Kurt?” he calls when the fairy disappears behind the flame. “Where’s Rachel?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Kurt’s voice comes back. “She should be here. But that’s not the only weird thing.”</p><p>“What?” Blaine asks, climbing up onto the branch.</p><p>“The fire …” Kurt walks into view “… it doesn’t <em>feel</em> the same.”</p><p>“What do you mean? What doesn’t feel the same?”</p><p>“It doesn’t want to listen to me.” Kurt reaches out to call to it. It sputters stubbornly before complying, but not as enthusiastically as it has times before. “I don’t understand it.”</p><p>“Is there a chance that this is a new flame?” Blaine sits back, trailing his feet in the pool with his eyes to the sky when something beyond the cover of clouds catches his attention.</p><p>“I … I guess so.” Kurt tries one more time to get the flame to behave. “But, I don’t see how. No one’s here. If my mother knew I was gone, she’d be here waiting for me.”</p><p>“Kurt …” Blaine’s golden eyes peer off behind Kurt’s head “… I think your mother knows ...”</p><p>“What?” Kurt follows Blaine’s eyeline. The clouds part, and the cove fills with a white light from above. Blaine puts his arms up over his face to hide from its oppressive brightness. Fire fairies drop from the sky and the trees all around. A swarm circles Blaine, but Kurt reaches him before they do and blocks him from their flaming spears.</p><p>“Don’t touch him!” Kurt commands. A few fairies back down. A few more conflicted fairies stand their ground, weapons raised.</p><p>“My Queen!” he hears a cry go out. “He’s here! The prince! We’ve found him!”</p><p>“Kurt!” His mother’s voice echoes as she approaches the cove. “I’m so glad to see that you’re safe! I thought for sure you had been kidnapped and dragged into the water!”</p><p>Elizabeth shrinks her bodily form and lands on the grass, pushing through the ring of guards surrounding the couple, thrilled to see her son back alive.</p><p>“After what happened to Rachel, I …“</p><p>She looks at the two standing before her. It takes her a moment to realize that the fairy standing behind her son is wingless. She glares at him, the smile dropping from her face. “<em>You</em>! You’re the water sprite responsible, aren’t you? You attacked my daughter! You kidnapped my son!”</p><p>“No!” Kurt cries.</p><p>Elizabeth’s eyes widen at the exclamation of her son.</p><p>“I didn’t attack anyone,” Blaine says calmly. “Please, let me explain …”</p><p>But Elizabeth isn’t listening, her ears ringing as she looks them over, her eyes falling on their joined hands, on Kurt’s body shielding the water sprite standing behind him.</p><p>“You … you were with <em>him</em>?” Elizabeth asks, her voice becoming dangerously quiet. “<em>This</em> is the one you love?”</p><p>“Mother,” Kurt starts, “I can explain ...”</p><p>“You were with him,” Elizabeth repeats, pointing an accusing finger in Kurt’s face. “You left your post, and your sister, to go off with <em>him</em>?”</p><p>“You don’t understand,” Kurt says.</p><p>“Your majesty …” Blaine steps to Kurt’s side, bowing low “… I am Blaine, and yes, I come from the kingdom beneath the sea, but I am here to deliver you a warning.”</p><p>“Warn <em>me</em>?” Elizabeth makes herself larger, highly offended at being addressed by a lowly water creature. And warned? Who was he to threaten her, the most powerful fairy on the planet!?</p><p>“My father, King Malek, is planning to attack,” Blaine continues, hoping to make Elizabeth hear him before she does anything rash. “You must prepare. You must do what you can to protect your subjects.”</p><p>Elizabeth’s eyes snap from Blaine’s face to Kurt’s – Blaine standing boldly in the face of his adversary, Kurt looking like he wants to dig a hole into the earth and hide. Elizabeth’s emotions clash and swell within her, unsure what to do with any of them. The ringing in her ears grows louder. Does she admire Blaine for his bravery? Does she detest her son for his show of cowardice? Does she kill them both where they stand for being traitors?</p><p>She can’t calm the tide within her long enough to decide.</p><p>“Lock them up!” Elizabeth yells, raising her arms and sending a storm of guards descending upon Blaine and Kurt. “My son to his room, and this one …” Her mouth curls fiendishly as the idea comes to her “… to the bower in the meadow.”</p><p>“No!” Kurt screams, scrabbling through the guards to reach Blaine, clawing at the faces of fairies who once protected him, fighting against those who avowed their lives to him. “No, you can’t! Mother! It’s only a few hours till sunrise! If you leave him there, he’ll die!”</p><p>Kurt catches Blaine eyes, the brave sprite holding himself straight and tall with his arms barred behind his back, not struggling to be free or begging for mercy.</p><p>“Then that should make negotiations go that much smoother,” Elizabeth says.</p><p>“Negotiations? Negotiations with <em>whom</em>?” Kurt watches with growing dread as the guards drag Blaine to his prison in the meadow, in a spot where the trees form a cone directly to the sky, funneling the light in when the sun reaches its apogee. “Negotiations with King Malek? Not a one of us can travel below water! We have no ambassadors among the creatures of the sea! How in the world do you intend to reach him!?”</p><p>“No.” Elizabeth turns from her son and returns to the flame. “Negotiations with <em>you</em>.”</p><p> ***</p><p>The guards escort Kurt back to the palace, and for the first time in his life, his people jeer at him. They yell at him. They curse at him. The fairies are a collective, a hive following the direction of their queen. Elizabeth has called out to her subjects with her mind and sent explicit instructions for those gathered who see her son to sneer at him.</p><p>“Traitor!” they call him. “Disgrace!”</p><p>“You are the reason our beloved princess is gone!” a voice cries out. “You are the reason Princess Rachel is dead!”</p><p>Kurt hears their words, and his heart shatters.</p><p>“Rachel is … <em>dead</em>?” he chokes. “No! Please!” He pleads with the guards around him. “Please tell me it isn’t true! She can’t be dead! She can’t be!” He’d seen her not too long ago, held her in his arms. She can’t be gone! She can’t be!</p><p>But the guards don’t talk to him. They don’t offer him any comfort. They continue treating him coldly, disaffected, ignoring his cries. They bring him to his room and lock him inside, a single guard staying behind to make sure he doesn’t escape.</p><p>Kurt sinks to the floor behind the locked door and begins to weep.</p><p>Rachel is dead.</p><p>His favorite sister gone.</p><p>And in a few hours, the love of his life will be, too.</p><p>After that, it won’t matter what happens to him.</p><p>King or not, he may as well walk into the sea.</p><p> ***</p><p>Kurt keeps vigil by the window when he feels the sunlight creep closer. This shouldn’t be happening. This isn’t the way Blaine is supposed to die, not when he tried so hard to do the noble thing. He deserves better than to burn to death, trapped in a cage without anyone there to comfort him.</p><p>Once Kurt calms his nerves enough to think, he tries to figure a way out of his prison, but there is none. Little by little, more guards join the first. They station themselves by his door and outside his window till they are his only view every time he looks out. The only way through that he can see is to rush the guards and hope for the best.</p><p>Just as he’s about to do something desperate, his door unlocks and slides open.</p><p>The first guard steps in, straight-backed and severe. “The queen wants to see you.”</p><p> ***</p><p>Kurt sees the ocean start to turn golden with the promise of sunlight on the horizon and he swallows hard.</p><p><em>Oh, please,</em> he pleads in his head. <em>G</em><em>ods</em><em> who look after the creatures of the sea, keep him safe. </em><em>E</em><em>xtend your reach to your son trapped on land. Don’t let him die.</em></p><p>The first thing Kurt sees as he and his armed guards approach the cove is his mother looming above, empowered by her rage, and Kurt begins to lose all hope. Filled from head to toe with this much hate, she will be impossible to convince. Kurt’s heart begins to wither.</p><p>He has already lost a sister. He can’t stand to watch his love die.</p><p>They enter the cove and Kurt’s eyes find Blaine cramped inside a prison made entirely of twisted roots springing from the earth. Guards armed with flaming spears surround him. They leer at the refugee sprite, taunt him, and on behalf of his own people, Kurt feels deeply ashamed. Kurt lands on the grass, soft and damp beneath his feet. <em>Water</em>. Blaine is lying on a bed of water, however sparse, and Kurt is grateful for that one small favor.</p><p>Kurt tries to make his way to Blaine, but the guards rush to block his path, their faces impassive. Kurt looks into their indifferent eyes and knows that they won’t be moved by any appeal from him. He has been stripped of his power and his dignity - his place of purpose among his people.</p><p>Kurt turns to his mother, ready to make a last-ditch attempt to stop this madness while knowing in his heart that arguing with his queen is futile.</p><p>This is the other side of the coin. This is his mother with her compassion gone.</p><p>“Let him go, Mother,” Kurt says, speaking for once in a tone commanding and regal, one his mother had always hoped for but had yet to hear.</p><p>Elizabeth raises an eyebrow, momentarily impressed, but it passes quickly. “No.”</p><p>“There is a war coming! He was only trying to help, to warn us, to save our kingdom!”</p><p>Elizabeth tilts her head on her shoulders and trains her gaze toward the sunrise.</p><p>The delight in her eyes at the rising sun sends a chill through Kurt’s body.</p><p>Kurt knew his mother was a force to be reckoned with, but he never knew that she was a heartless killer.</p><p>“Why are you determined to see him dead, Mother?” Kurt asks, gritting his teeth, trying to keep anxiety at bay to think clearly. “Because he is our enemy, or because by falling in love with him, I hurt your pride?”</p><p>That gets her attention, and she turns fiercely on her son.</p><p>“What were you going to do, Kurt? Huh?” Elizabeth asks in a mocking tone. “Were you going to run away together? Where did you think you two could go that I wouldn’t find you? Where on earth could you live out of the water and away from the sun?”</p><p>“There is a star …” Kurt prepares to explain about the field of flowers that bloom only during the eclipse, whose pods would take them into the heavens, but mentioning the star is all he need do. The way his mother’s face blanches, Kurt knows it’s true. The star exists. </p><p>And his mother knows it.</p><p>“How?” Elizabeth asks, pausing to word her question carefully. “How do you think you know about such a star?”</p><p>“A sea turtle told us,” Kurt admits, keeping the turtle’s name a secret in case his mother goes searching for vengeance, “about a star where fire and water can exist together in peace. A star where Blaine and I can start a new life, since you and his father seem dead set on destroying all life here.”</p><p>His mother shrinks a hair, her skin returning to a cooler hue. The look in her eyes is unreadable, which frightens Kurt.</p><p>He can hear the morning start its song. He’s running out of time.</p><p>“The turtle is mistaken, you foolish child!” Elizabeth roars, her skin turning a deeper red than before. “There is no star, no place where you two can exist together in peace, so forget about all of that! You are not going anywhere with the water sprite! You are staying here and you will be king! You will defeat our enemy, and the fire fairies will rule over this world as they were meant to from the beginning!”</p><p>“I love him!” Kurt yells, reaching out, longing for a touch of Blaine’s hand.</p><p>“He’s one of them!” Elizabeth screams. “He’s the enemy, and by siding with him, that makes you a traitor!”</p><p>“I love him!” Kurt repeats.</p><p>“You can’t love him!” Elizabeth counters. “I forbid it!”</p><p>“<em>You</em> used to love one of them!” Kurt yells. “Or don’t you remember?” Elizabeth furrows her brow, but her face goes from red to pink as she starts to understand – the secret she had kept from her children for so many years, now known. “Malek?” Kurt says the name with sourness on his tongue. “Your other half? “ He shakes his head in despair at his mother. “Why did you not tell me?”</p><p>“Kurt,” Elizabeth says, making herself bigger, “that is none of your affair.”</p><p>“None of my affair?” Kurt’s body trembles in anger. “Soon the armies of the water sprites will be on our shores, and it is none of my affair? The one that you loved so dearly that you lived as a single entity for eons has declared war on our kingdom with his blind hatred – a hatred <em>you</em> share - and it’s none of my affair? You are turning the mantle of king over to me on the eve of war, <em>and it’s none of my affair</em>?”</p><p>“Kurt,” she says, growing even larger, “this is the last time I warn you.” Fairies around them fly for cover, but her size and booming voice no longer intimidate Kurt, who stares at her with the desolate mask of one betrayed.</p><p>“No, Mother!” Kurt pushes the guards aside as they back away from their terrifying queen. Kurt puts a hand on the roots of the bower that keeps Blaine trammeled inside. “This is the last time I listen to your lies! I refuse to become king! Keep your rule and keep your hate! This ends with me …” Kurt looks at Blaine, kneeling in his cage “… and him.”</p><p>Blaine reaches out a hand through the roots and laces their fingers together, smiling in a weak attempt at giving Kurt courage, but his golden eyes speak his feelings of hopelessness and regret. Elizabeth watches them, her fury igniting with each touch of her son’s fingers of the water sprite’s skin.</p><p>“You will go, son. You will meet the eclipse as you were meant to. You will become king and you will win this war …” Elizabeth raises her hand, filling it with flame “… or I will not wait for the sun. I will burn your beloved myself!”</p><p>“No!” Kurt blocks the cage with his own body, but as small as the prison is, Kurt’s body is so much smaller, and he is not sure he can control his mother’s flame. “You can’t!”</p><p>“Someone has yet to pay for what happened to your sister,” Elizabeth growls, the flame covering her hand growing red with her anger. “Shall it be him?”</p><p>Kurt looks from his mother’s eyes, full of a rage such as he has never seen before, to the water sprite shivering in his cage – hands curled over the bars, pulling at them with all his strength, helpless and frightened. Kurt feels the sun cresting the horizon, feels his own rage turn to sorrow.</p><p>“No …” Kurt’s gaze returns to his mother’s eyes “… it shall be me. Let him go, and I will do what you demand. I will not fight you.”</p><p>“No!” Blaine yells. “No, Kurt! Don’t!”</p><p>“Release him, then I will take my place as king,” Kurt says over Blaine’s protests. “I will fight your war … and I will never see Blaine again.”</p><p>Elizabeth extinguishes the flame with a grim smile of triumph.</p><p>“Done.” She snaps her fingers and the guards re-appear.</p><p>“No, Kurt!” Blaine cries. “Don’t!”</p><p>Kurt takes a deep breath - a steadying breath, a breath to give him all the strength in the universe - then looks at Blaine. The sprite shakes his head, reaching out an arm to touch his fairy prince.</p><p>“No,” Blaine pleads. “Don’t.” Blaine’s defeated expression is an image Kurt doesn’t want to be left with - his love, his courageous prince, finally beginning to crumble. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave me.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.” Kurt bites his lip to keep from breaking down. “I love you too much. I have no other choice.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kurt watches the guards gather twigs from around the meadow and quickly construct a second, slightly larger cage. When the structure is complete, they transfer the struggling sprite from one to the other. They lower the cage into the water of a hidden pool via several thick vines, securing it in the shadow of the briars. Blaine will be safe from the sunlight there, but he will have an unobstructed view of the meadow - and Kurt’s coronation.</p><p>Blaine looks only at Kurt as they lower him into the water, begging silently with his eyes for the fairy prince to change his mind. Kurt mournfully shakes his head. He looks away from his love, his heart splintering like glass with the effort it takes to leave Blaine alone in yet another cold, dark prison.</p><p>“I’m so glad I raised such an intelligent son,” Elizabeth says, tossing a handful of peonies into the flame and filling the cove with a soft, pink glow. “A son who can see reason, who knows his rightful place and owns up to his responsibilities. Oh, you may have strayed, but in the end, you understand your duty. You will be a virtue to the throne.”</p><p>Kurt kneels in the grass, letting servants from the palace dress him in royal garb, put crowns of flowers in his hair and cover his face in powders and paints until he is nearly unrecognizable.</p><p>“There was a time when I would have done anything for you, Mother,” he says, his voice devoid of all emotion. “Done anything to hear those words of praise from your lips. But now …”</p><p>“Now what, my son?” Elizabeth asks, barely regarding Kurt as she gathers more flowers for the flame.</p><p>“Now I do none of this for your empty praise, or for you.” Kurt’s eyes drift to the pool and the golden eyes staring at him. “I’ll become king, but it’s not for you or my kingdom. It’s for <em>him</em>.” He swallows back a sob, erases the grimace from his face, and tries his best to smile. “It’s all for him.”</p><p>“You are a fool,” Elizabeth says of her son, gazing up at the darkening sky. “But soon it will not matter. You will be king. You will inherit my powers. And when the eclipse is over and everything is done, you will see things <em>my</em> way.”</p><p>***</p><p>Within his cage beneath the water, Blaine tries to think logically, but he feels the eclipse draw near. It will change Kurt, turn him into a king, but it was meant to change Blaine, too. The moon inching close to cover the sun calls to him. Blaine feels his body growing stronger, though he is not strong enough yet to break free of his cage.</p><p>But if he can break free, what should be his next move?</p><p>If he comes up on land to appeal to the fairies during the eclipse, they will attack, with or without Kurt’s command, and Blaine doesn’t know if this new strength will be enough to defend himself from their fire. Most likely not, since he has never heard of an undersea creature with the power to withstand direct flame. Not even his father – at least, he thought not.</p><p>He knows nothing for certain anymore.</p><p>He could try to stop the army of sprites coming for the cove, but why would they listen to him? Blaine is no longer heir to the throne. He is nothing to them anymore. Trent won’t be leading the assault. There would be no one for him to appeal to, and no doubt his father has given them instructions to kill him on sight if they encounter him. The only thing he can do is bide his time, keep an eye out for an opportunity to leap into the fray and do whatever he can to stop this battle.</p><p>Blaine hunkers down and lets the strength of the moon flourish within him, tugging the bindings on the cage every so often to see if he can wear them down. Otherwise, all he can do is wait.</p><p>And Blaine hates to wait.</p><p>***</p><p>The sky turns black as the water and Kurt feels his body call out for the sun. From what he remembers, once the moon covers the sun, the earth will be overrun by a dark radiance - a light only visible during the eclipse - which will give the royal heir to the throne their power. It’s a form of rebirth – a metamorphosis from common fairy to king or queen.</p><p>But if it’s going to turn him into the heartless, self-serving beast his mother has become, he doesn’t want it – <em>any</em> of it.</p><p>Unfortunately, it’s too late for him now.</p><p>Kurt had looked forward to inheriting a kingdom which had enjoyed centuries of peace. But here he stands, and his first command as king will be to annihilate an entire race – a race he had longed to call friend and bring under his protection. But fate and vanity had declared them eternal enemies, and no power on the planet could stop the rage of war.</p><p>Alas, no more words from a wise and cynical sea turtle will be able to save them now.</p><p>Kurt turns his gaze to the sun shining above his head as the shadow of the moon starts to blot it out. The world around him grows dim, and the dark light of the eclipse begins to glow. He feels it first in his wings as they start to lengthen. Then in his arms and legs as they tingle and fill with heat. Finally, his eyes burn silver with the full power of the Eternal Flame, fed by his mother as she fills it to the brim with flowers from the meadow – amaryllis for pride, iris for wisdom, callas for beauty, poppies for success, and roses for hope.</p><p>Kurt watches his mother and wishes for more roses – many more roses.</p><p>He can see his transformation reflect in his lover’s eyes beneath the water. Kurt turns away, unable to stand their agony and wonder. He shifts his gaze to the horizon, to the ocean stretching out in all directions, and the rolling hills. Off in the distance, white flecks gather in great numbers, rising higher and higher into the sky. Kurt sees them – the pods of the flowers that the turtle told them about, bursting into the air and floating to the heavens. And as the strength of the flame flows within him, cementing his place on the throne, he feels his soul begin to break.</p><p>Hundreds of pods lift into the sky and not a one of them wait to carry him and Blaine along. When the last one disappears and the sun choked with darkness, Kurt looks back into the pool in search of Blaine.</p><p>But he sees only his own reflection.</p><p>No, he sees the reflection of a doomed king.</p><p>The fairy staring back at Kurt is not him, and never will be.</p><p>The fairies around Kurt fall to their knees, his many sins and transgressions suddenly forgotten now that he stands before them as their king.</p><p>“There!” Elizabeth raises her arms and bows low to her son in the presence of all so that they will know she gives him her blessing to rule. “I present to you all my son, Kurt, King of the Fire Fairies!”</p><p>“Long live the king!” the fairies chant as they toss their offerings of flowers at his feet and more offerings into the flame. “Long may he rule!”</p><p>Kurt feels a tremor in his spirit, the vibrations of hundreds of feet marching beneath his skin. Because of his new connection to the earth, he perceives what is yet unseen. He inhales deep and looks at the water. Ringlets form, the thinnest of disturbances impacting the water’s surface as <em>they</em> start to arrive.</p><p>“There will be no peace,” Kurt says to himself, opening his wings to rise high into the sky. Behind him, a regiment of fairies dressed in armor and carrying spears topped with flame fall in line, preparing for battle. “Today, the end begins.”</p><p>Metal helmets poke through the water’s surface like the fins of tiny sharks and head for land. Kurt searches the water for Blaine but his water sprite is gone, and Kurt doesn’t blame him. Whether at the hands of the fire fairies or the water sprites, he surely would have become the first casualty of war with Kurt - focused on defending his kingdom - powerless to protect him.</p><p>Line after line of water sprites appears, crowding the shore, but only one sprite speaks.</p><p>“My name is Cassius,” he says. “Supreme General of the Undersea Kingdom, under the command of King Malek the Great.”</p><p>“And what have you to say to me, Supreme General?” Kurt asks, his voice a rumble over the earth and sky. “Why have you come to our shores on the eve of this sacred ceremony?”</p><p>“I have come to you,” the sprite says in a stiff, commanding voice, but with more respect than Kurt would have expected, “with a declaration of war.”</p><p>“And why does your king declare war on us?” Kurt asks, stalling as he tries, even now, to find a way out of this mess. If he can stall until the eclipse is over, the sun will force the sprites back into the water.</p><p>Not that that will stop the war, but it may delay it a little.</p><p>“Your realm has been charged with crimes against the crown,” the Supreme General declares. “Specifically in the matter of His Royal Highness, Prince Blaine, exiled son of the king.”</p><p>“I see. Then I will discuss this matter with King Malek himself,” Kurt declares, “since it is because of me that your prince was exiled, and I would like the opportunity to defend my actions.” Kurt looks down at the Supreme General, who stares back at him, unmoved. “Is your king with you?”</p><p>“He is not,” the Supreme General replies, “but I have my orders …”</p><p>“Return to your ocean and tell your king I will speak with him on this and only him. I believe it is only fitting for a king to address a king on an issue as serious as declaring war. Do you not?”</p><p>“Be that as it may,” the Supreme General says, conceited in his amusement at the young king’s demands, “I carry the banner of King Malek, therefore I speak for him …”</p><p>“But you don’t have his authority,” Kurt cuts in, doing his best to draw this out a bit longer. “You carry his declaration of war, yes, and are given the authority to launch an attack. However, the burden of negotiation falls on the shoulders of the king and the king alone. And as I am not willing to endanger my kingdom, I demand negotiation, which I believe is my right. So go back to King Malek and tell him to come face me.” Kurt waits, staring the general down with all the confidence he can muster to back his words. He anticipates another volley, a (hopefully) long-winded explanation of the Supreme General’s position and his authority to represent the throne as granted by the king.</p><p>But the Supreme General does no such thing.</p><p>He calls out a command and the army advances. Kurt rises higher, spreading out his arms, his hands engulfed in flame.</p><p>“How far do you think you and your army will be able to come up onto my shores?” He reaches out an arm and calls for the flame. It leaps at his command, threading over the cove, lighting the grass and smoking wildly, forcing the sprites to retreat to the pool.</p><p>Kurt hears his wall of fire sizzle, a massive wave of smoke rising up from the grass as a tremendous line of sprites extinguish the fire at its base. Kurt reaches out to relight the grass, but it is soaked with water, and the flame doesn’t catch.</p><p>“I think,” the Supreme General says, a smug grin twisting his lips as he rises from the pool and marches his troops onto the shore, “that we can come up as far as we please.”</p><p>Kurt feels his new power – his <em>mother’s</em> power - luring him into battle, forcing his hand. He creates a wave of flame rising high into the sky, tall enough and wide enough to push every sprite into oblivion. The sprites see the fire coil like a viper, preparing to strike.</p><p>But the front line of sprites, ready to sacrifice their lives, is only a diversion. A regiment of soldiers armed with tridents and nets surround the cove, sneaking up into the grass behind the fairy king, preparing to strike once the whip of fire finds its mark. Their orders are to ambush the king and as many of his army as they can and drag them into the water.</p><p>And Kurt, who has never been confronted with the possibility of war in his life, has no idea such an attack is coming his way.</p><p>Completely engaged with his snake of flame, the sprites close in around him, waiting for their signal.</p><p>The fire lashes out. </p><p>The nets fly into the air. </p><p>And all at once, a belt of water dissolves the fire and carries the army of sprites back into the ocean, dragging them down into the deep.</p><p>Kurt spins around, fluttering high, startled for the moment that he was saved within an inch of losing his life, but he has no idea by whom. The smoke from the extinguished fire whip clears and Blaine is there – a <em>transformed</em> Blaine – an immense, imposing water sprite, as large as Kurt, the likes of which none have seen since the last time the Great Sea King Malek left the confines of his castle.</p><p>Before he became the vulgar blackened mass he is today.</p><p>The army of sprites rally behind him, preparing to press the advantage of this surprise, but Blaine glowers at them, golden eyes burning like molten rock.</p><p>“Enough!” he yells, waving a hand and washing the remaining sprites back into the water before they can release their nets again.</p><p>“Blaine?” Kurt hovers closer, looking Blaine up and down, relishing seeing him with his new eyes. “But, how …?”</p><p>“I became my father,” Blaine says bleakly, “like you became your mother.”</p><p>“But, you never said anything. Did you know …?”</p><p>“No,” Blaine answers with a dry chuckle. “I can safely say no one ever warned me about this.”</p><p>Startled cries rise up as the remaining sprites try to wage war around the two kings, but a potent wall of fire, and another ring of water manage to keep the warriors in their place. Kurt feels the mounting swell of black light fade. He knows the sun will soon return and bring forth the day.</p><p>“Blaine, you have to go! The sun will come out soon! Take your army back into the water and leave!”</p><p>“Not without you,” Blaine says.</p><p>“But, I can’t!” Kurt looks at his fairies attempting to breach the water and fire wall. “I have to stay here!”</p><p>“And wage your Mother’s war?” Blaine asks. “Then the only choice for me is to stay with you, no matter what.”</p><p>“But … you can’t … and I … I have to …” Looking into Blaine’s eyes, Kurt finds it hard to remember exactly why it is so important that he stay. What was going on around him that was more important than the water sprite in front of him?</p><p>“We can end this, my love,” Blaine says with his hand outstretched. “Remember?”</p><p>“But the flowers!” Kurt sobs. “I saw them! They’re gone! They’ve floated away and left us behind!”</p><p>“They don’t matter. We’ll find a way. We’re strong enough to make it there together. On our own. Let’s leave this all behind and start our new world, Kurt. What do you say? Will you come with me?”</p><p>Kurt looks at Blaine’s hand beckoning him, fingers curled inward, inviting him to come along. <em>There</em> is his out. He still has a chance at peace.</p><p>Blaine is offering him the greatest gift in the world – a second chance.</p><p>And more than anything, Kurt wants to take it.</p><p>It’s the singing of the sun in the sky that alerts Kurt to the trouble before he sees it.</p><p>Kurt could have saved him, could have rescued Blaine from the eclipse if he had only taken his hand, but as soon as a sliver of the sun shows its face, Elizabeth – standing aside, forgotten, hidden by the flame - sends out what is left of her power and strikes Blaine to the ground, sending him reeling into the single ray of daylight.</p><p>It strikes him in the eyes, its effect on the sprite instantaneous.</p><p>“No!” Kurt screams to bring down the stars in the heavens. “No! Blaine!”</p><p>The fairies disperse and the sprites run for cover, ducking into the water to avoid the daylight flooding the cove.</p><p>Kurt calls upon his power to pull every cloud above to the cove – every thunderhead, every cumulonimbus. He fills the sky over their heads with an infinity of clouds, but it’s not enough to undo what has been done.</p><p>The wet earth cruelly holds Kurt’s feet as he runs across it, his large, flowing wings slowing him down. Or maybe it’s time slowing, since Kurt is sure it will stop if Blaine is actually dead. Kurt looks down at Blaine’s limp body, his scorched eyelids, his face relaxed as if in sleep.</p><p>Peaceful in death.</p><p>“No,” Kurt whispers, dropping to his knees. “No, no, no, no. Blaine?” He reaches for the water sprite, his hands gently touching his cold cheek. “Blaine, please … please, wake up.”</p><p>Around the two lovers, the fairies gather. From the shore, sprites take tentative steps onto land.</p><p>“No,” Kurt repeats, not knowing what to say. If he can’t think of something that will bring him back, words are useless. “He had such a beautiful soul,” he says, talking as if a multitude of eyes aren’t watching him grieve, a multitude of ears not listening. He leans forward, kisses Blaine’s lips one more time. Tears fall from his eyes, wetting Blaine’s cheeks like a drizzle of rain, but they do not wake him.</p><p>“I did this,” Kurt says softly. “I killed him.”</p><p>“Kurt …” Elizabeth comes out of hiding and hovers over her son. Kurt’s eyes snap up to meet hers - piercing blue eyes burning with hate.</p><p>“I killed him,” he repeats, holding Blaine’s body close to his chest, cradling the water sprite’s head against his heart. “And you did, Mother!” he screams. His gaze sweeps the congregation around him, those turbulent eyes taking in the faces of fairy and sprite alike. “And you! And you! And you! All of you, with your hate! Your stupid, mindless hate! And for what? Who won!? Nobody! Nobody won!”</p><p>Kurt turns his back on his fairies, ignores the sprites creeping forward, attempting to claim the body of their fallen prince. With great reverence befitting a noble king, he lifts Blaine in his arms and walks away from his kingdom, heading with purposeful strides to the water.</p><p>Elizabeth follows behind him. “Kurt! What are you doing!?”</p><p>“I am returning Blaine to his home.”</p><p>“But, you can’t! If you go into the water, you’ll die!”</p><p>“Then I die! And this debt of the fire fairies to the water kingdom will be repaid! And perhaps then this stupid war will be considered over!”</p><p>“Kurt!” Elizabeth screams after her son, but without her power, she can do nothing to stop him. He does not listen to her cries, and she does not follow him down to the water. He stops for a moment at the very edge, where gentle waves lap at the shore. His light reflects off it, a thousand dots shimmering over the surface, and for once, Kurt sees the beauty in it – not the reflection of the fire’s glow, but the way the flame blends with the water. A shallow finger of water reaches out for him and wraps around his ankle, tugging at his leg. Each tug brings him closer, the cold whorling up his leg into his body, spreading icy hands toward his heart.</p><p>Kurt no longer fears the water. It rises up in search of its prince, but it will accept him as well, and they will be one.</p><p>“We’ll be together,” Kurt says, brushing a lock of hair from Blaine’s face, “just like we planned. Just like we dreamed. You and me and our brand new world.”</p><p>Kurt takes a step forward, and then another. The waves rise up to greet them, to fold the two children in its arms and take them under.</p><p>“I love you, Blaine,” Kurt says, letting the final wave cover him and carry him into the dark.</p><p>The cove is hushed, the water motionless, the Eternal Flame dancing alone on its branch, burning lower and lower. The sprites, gathered at the water’s edge, look on in shock, while the fairies have begun to cry out in mourning. </p><p>Neither notice the disturbance farther out, the deep water churning and bubbling from below, coming closer and closer. The pool swirls around and around. In its center, a crown of shimmering gray flesh rises. A face breaks through the surface, and then a hand – open flat, palm facing the sky. Two small figures rest in the center – Blaine and Kurt, still as if sleeping, wrapped in one another’s arms.</p><p>“Malek,” Elizabeth gasps, addressing her other half for the first time since Earth began.</p><p>“Elizabeth,” he says, eyes focused solely on the bodies in his hand.</p><p>“We did this,” Elizabeth says, looking at the body of her son.</p><p>“Yes,” Malek says, gazing down at his own, “we did.”</p><p>“He would have ruled in my stead,” Elizabeth says.</p><p>“And he in mine,” Malek says.</p><p>Elizabeth looks at the fairy and sprite lying side-by-side, fingers laced even in the gloom of death.</p><p>“So why don’t we give them what is theirs?” she says, brushing the hair from her son’s eyes with her fingertips, and then from Blaine’s.</p><p>“How do you mean?” Malek asks, watching Elizabeth tend to his son.</p><p>“We’ll exchange our fate for theirs. We will leave this world in their place. Then they can improve what’s been made here, and we will create a new one.” Elizabeth smiles. “We will watch them from above.”</p><p>“They will rectify our mistakes …” Malek adds, taking the fairy queen’s hand.</p><p>“… rebuild what we’ve torn apart …”</p><p>“… so that things may begin again, the way they were meant to be.”</p><p>Malek raises Elizabeth’s hand to his mouth - a mouth on a face that begins to look less like a putrid, indefinable mass and more like a sprite.</p><p>A handsome sprite with raven curls and glowing amber eyes.</p><p>Elizabeth smiles. “It’s nice to see you again.”</p><p>Malek returns her smile. “Likewise, my love.”</p><p>Elizabeth turns to her children – the fairies taking to the air. She extends her hand and brushes through them with one final caress as she reaches past and takes hold of the Eternal Flame. She holds the fire in the palm of her hand and places it beneath the water. It sputters, dances. In a single burst, it shoots out in all directions, sinking to the ocean floor but does not extinguish.</p><p>“Your children will always be welcome here … in my son’s kingdom,” Elizabeth says, her body becoming translucent, shimmering like sparkles on the water.</p><p>“And your children will always be welcome beneath the water … in my son’s kingdom,” Malek says, placing the two bodies on the grass as his own form begins to fade.</p><p>Around the bodies of the two fallen princes a cone of light forms – one blue, twisting and spiraling in one direction, while another, soft and pink, spirals in another. They spin and twirl, faster and faster, fitting one another until they become one – a beacon that shoots to the heavens and lights the sky, filling the universe with its radiance. There’s a moment when the light becomes so bright that everyone witnessing it must turn their eyes away or risk being blinded by it. It bounces off the ocean, reflects the stars, and makes the land around them hum with life. Soon the light disappears and the world becomes dark and quiet once more, except for one point of light that glows in the center of Kurt and Blaine’s joined hands.</p><p>The silence that covers the cove is broken when two souls take their first breaths together as one.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kurt anxiously taps his feet and flutters his wings as he watches the sun sink toward the horizon.</p><p>“Come on, come on, come on, come on …” he mutters as it slowly drops from the sky, melting into a puddle of gold as its rays come in contact with the water. Kurt counts the seconds as the last of the light touches the land, spreading out, racing across the ocean with fingers of champagne pink, the sky fading into a broad palette of purples and blues that bleed out the night.</p><p>“Yes!” Kurt cheers, preparing to leap from the throne room window and soar into the sky.</p><p>“<em>Kurt!</em>” a voice whines, catching him before he leaves. “When are you going to let me out of the palace?”</p><p>“Ugh! Rachel!” Kurt groans, almost falling from the window’s ledge. “Not yet, my darling. You are still too weak. Besides, there is no flame to tend. You are fine indoors for a few more nights.”</p><p>“Hmph! You’re worse than Mother. Even she wouldn’t have kept me locked up half this long,” Rachel pouts, plopping down in Kurt’s throne and kicking her feet, her heels scraping the floor.</p><p>“Yes, well, you don’t know the things that Mother would have done,” Kurt mutters. It’s been weeks since his coronation, and Rachel has been slowly recovering from the horrendous coma the Eternal Flame had put her under to save her life. Now, with the flame safely beneath the water, lending its life to the world from the center of the Earth, the job of Royal Fire Tender is extinguished, and Rachel can focus on the task of being a young, carefree fairy.</p><p>A gift that Kurt was never given.</p><p>Rachel’s grieving has been long and difficult. Ergo, he’s decided to give her time before he fills her in on everything she missed when he became king, especially with regards to their mother.</p><p>Kurt steps out onto the air, spreading his wings in the cool breeze, letting it hold him aloft.</p><p>“Kurt!” Rachel calls out, her rough voice summoning her brother back before he has the chance to fly away.</p><p>“What?” he asks impatiently, hovering just outside the window.</p><p>Rachel’s grin is weak from her convalescence, but sincere with her love for her brother.</p><p>“Tell Handsome I said hello.”</p><p>Kurt rolls his eyes, glad to have his sister back to taunt him to no end – king or not. He blows her a kiss, waves one final good-bye, and pushes off the wall of the palace, sprinting for the water. Over the surface of the ocean he flies, the swells parting as his wings beat against the breeze, the light from his body glittering like the stars on the water, calling forth his one true love.</p><p>Blaine can see Kurt’s light from anywhere beneath the water - from the darkest reaches of the farthest abyss, even the other side of the world. Not before long, the Great King of the Sea answers, his sleek, muscular body rising up from the waves to chase his Fairy King. Kurt zips through the sky, cutting between the rising waves, laughing and bobbing just out of Blaine’s reach.</p><p>“Come on!” Kurt twirls upward, barely escaping Blaine’s grasp. “You’ve got to do better than that if you want to knock me out of the sky!”</p><p>“I’m not trying to knock you out of the sky,” Blaine chuckles, launching through the water, diving down deep, then rising up into the air to grab Kurt around the waist. Kurt plays at struggling to break free, but he eventually surrenders … like he always does. The water pulls Blaine back down, and Kurt lets Blaine take him with it. In Blaine’s arms, the water rolls off Kurt’s skin, his wings and his flesh barely wet by the time Blaine’s wave carries them to the shore of a distant island and deposits them on the sand.</p><p>The island is a creation of Blaine’s – a gift to Kurt for his coronation. It started life as a massive rock embedded in the ocean floor, miles wide, that would have eventually floated free if not for a single tether keeping it wedged inside a crevasse. Blaine released it and, with Kurt’s help, they established new life on its surface – grass, trees, and flowers of every color, but mostly roses.</p><p>Hundreds and hundreds of roses.</p><p>“You cheated!” Kurt squirms to stand, but Blaine wraps his arms around him, locking their bodies together as they lay out on the sand.</p><p>“I did not,” Blaine says, pressing cold lips against Kurt’s warm neck, smirking when Kurt’s eyes go from sea blue to liquid silver with desire. “I won fair and square.”</p><p>“You call that fair, you brute?” Kurt moans when Blaine finds a sensitive spot on his shoulder and runs his tongue over it. “You tackled me!”</p><p>“And you loved every minute of it.” Blaine continues his assault on Kurt’s skin until it’s hot to the touch. Kurt tries to argue, but soon abandons any attempt at speech. Blaine loves having Kurt like this – lying on top of him, the heat from his skin countering the cool of Blaine’s body, making everywhere they touch each other tingle. Kurt relaxes as kisses become softer, gentler. Kurt curls his wings over their heads, creating a private corner of the world where they can be absolutely alone - where even the stars can’t see them.</p><p>One particular star especially.</p><p>“What did you want to do this evening, my liege?” Blaine asks, not sure whether or not he’s going to get a coherent answer.</p><p>“Are you making fun of me?” Kurt asks, looking into Blaine’s bioluminescent eyes with mock offense.</p><p>“Not at all.” Blaine runs a hand up Kurt’s back, trailing light fingertips between his wings, causing them to tremble. “Tonight, consider me your humble servant.”</p><p>“Servant I’ll believe, but humble - never.” Kurt laughs. Blaine attaches his mouth to Kurt’s chest and kisses him hard. Kurt hums with every press of Blaine’s lips against his skin, considering Blaine’s proposition.</p><p>“You’ll do anything I want?” Kurt asks, carding the fingers of both hands through Blaine’s sandy hair.</p><p>“Anything. Just name it.”</p><p>Kurt knows exactly what he wants. He bites his bottom lip as he tries to find the right way to ask.</p><p>“Do you remember that night in the meadow when we …” Kurt drags out the sentence, the blush on his entire body becoming deeper and deeper.</p><p>“A-ha,” Blaine says, provoking an already flustered Kurt.</p><p>“You called what we did an expression of love,” Kurt reminds him.</p><p>“Yes. And I’ll remember that night for the rest of my life.”</p><p>“Well,” Kurt continues, raising a hand to trace circles over Blaine’s heart with the tip of his finger, “remember when you said that was one of many?”</p><p>“Yeah …” Blaine smiles wide, rolling Kurt gently onto his back in the sand, giving him a moment to carefully unfurl his wings before he sets him completely down.</p><p>“I thought, maybe, you could show me another one.” Kurt’s eyes cool as they focus on Blaine’s mouth, his lips curling devilishly at the edges when he smiles.</p><p>“Oh Great Fairy King,” Blaine whispers, brushing Kurt’s lips with his own. “Your wish is my command.”</p><p>
  <em>The end.</em>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So this is the end of the main story. There are two one-shots following this that are simply "this is more fluff after HEA" xD</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. On Kurt's Island</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Blaine reclines on the sand and watches his Fairy King construct his arbor, wishing he could steal Kurt’s attention away from the meticulous work he’s doing. Blaine knows he shouldn’t bother him. Kurt has been trying to build this structure for the better part of five days. And Blaine … well, he’s of little help in that arena, never having had created anything that’s stood on land. But watching Kurt work - the muscles in his back stretching as he reaches, his wings fluttering in reflex - Blaine can’t help his urges.</p><p>Those wings. Those gorgeous, ethereal wings are Blaine’s weakness. Blaine loves looking at Kurt’s wings. Blaine can say it’s because he comes from the sea and there are no creatures below the water with appendages like those, but that’s not the complete truth. There are many fish with gossamer fins that look remarkably like wings. They might not fly through the water the same way Kurt soars through the sky, but they hang and drift, suspended on the current. The effect can be described as similar, but it’s in no way the same.</p><p>Kurt’s wings are a magical thing to behold. They are magnificent in span, even compared to others of his kind, and they look like skeletal lace. During the day, they capture the rays of the sun and glimmer like twin flames. And at night, they hold the moonlight and reflect it like an aurora. The fairies tried to fashion the windows of Kurt’s palace after them, out of woven gold mesh and fine, spindly, pearlescent glass, except that the effect of Kurt’s wings could never be re-created. They are unique, singular, exceptional.</p><p>Just like the Great Fairy King himself.</p><p>For Blaine, being around Kurt is like drinking a fine wine, one that you don’t have to put your lips to in order to feel its effects. Kurt makes Blaine dizzy. He makes Blaine’s world spin in several different directions at once. He makes everything brighter and warmer and effervescent.</p><p>Kurt is a force of nature. Blaine knows that firsthand.</p><p>He creates fire from his fingertips.</p><p>He can make flowers grow.</p><p>And he outshines the sun.</p><p>Watching Kurt work and listening to him sing gives Blaine fuel to daydream. He often watches Kurt and wonders how things would have turned out if everything had gone the way Kurt had originally wanted, and they had made it to that Star. Blaine imagines that things for them would not be much different. They would be together, the way they are on this little island of theirs, and they would be in love. But they would be starting the world over – Blaine controlling the water, filling it with life, with Kurt doing the same on the surface.</p><p>The only difference would be that the world where they were born would be gone - a victim of their parents’ intolerance and hate.</p><p>Blaine prefers this so much better.</p><p>Blaine watches as Kurt carefully crafts his roses one petal at a time. Kurt’s patience astounds Blaine. Blaine was often told that the fairies of the fire were impetuous, prone to rash decisions, and that the sprites of the water were the level-headed ones. But in Blaine’s experience with Kurt, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, Kurt has a temper to rival any fairy, but he had the patience of the moon waiting through its phases to show its entire face to the world. That’s how Kurt creates. He’s perfected the art of manipulating light. He could spend all evening on a single flower, infusing it with every color ever known from the cells on out.</p><p><em>If</em> Blaine lets him … which he finds that he can’t, and not because of the rising sun calling to them, warning them of its appearance. They’ve found ways around the sunrise. Kurt’s arbor is one of them, but that’s not all. They’ve spent whole days chasing the night, from one side of the world to the other, just to spend time together. Kurt also discovered that his palace has an outlet to an underground waterway. He never knew about it because the only way to reach it is through a staircase in the Queen’s chambers – his mother’s room. He likes to believe that his mother had it built that way in case Malek ever decided to return to her. Blaine uses it in his father’s stead to visit Kurt in his palace, sleep beside him in his bed.</p><p>But aside from all of this, in Kurt’s arms, the sun doesn’t harm Blaine, just as in Blaine’s arms, the water leaves Kurt be.</p><p>Blaine rises from the sand and walks over to his busy fairy, eager to touch him. Kurt’s body is Blaine’s paradise. It’s warm and comforting. His skin feels like satin, his hair like silk, and his mouth ...</p><p>Whenever Blaine feels like going to heaven, that’s the first place he visits.</p><p>Kissing his Fairy King takes him straight there.</p><p>“You know,” Kurt says, as Blaine wraps his arms around him from behind, “this arbor’s never going to get done.”</p><p>“Yes, it will,” Blaine says, pressing cool kisses to Kurt’s shoulder. “And if it doesn’t, it will have very little to do with me, my King, and more to do with the fact that you’re such a perfectionist.”</p><p>“This arbor is for <em>you</em>, my love,” Kurt points out. He pauses a moment where he’s been darkening a petal to the exact shade of gold as Blaine’s lust blown eyes to lean into Blaine’s skin and surrender to his kisses. “I would like it to be as close to perfect as possible.”</p><p>“It will be …” Blaine tightens his arms around Kurt’s waist “… if it has you in it.”</p><p>Kurt smiles. “Well, of course,” he agrees, completing his petal, then snapping his fingers to make the others around it the exact same shade.</p><p>“It’s gorgeous,” Blaine says of Kurt’s rose. “Now, make half of them that color, and it’ll be wonderful.”</p><p>Wh-what about the other half?” Kurt’s words waver when Blaine moves his kisses to the junction of Kurt’s wings where they meet his shoulder. Kurt never imagined that would feel as good as it does. He never liked having his wings – any part of them – touched before. But Blaine is so gentle about it, his mouth so tender around them, that it has become the one touch Kurt craves most.</p><p>“Make those the color of your eyes,” Blaine whispers against the glassine flesh of his wings, “and I will be supremely happy.”</p><p>“So blue then?” Kurt asks, trembling fingers moving to a bare branch of the arbor. White roses bloom at his touch, waiting to be transformed.</p><p>“No.” Blaine shakes his head, brushing the nape of Kurt’s neck with his hair, that sensation sizzling with the memory of other times Blaine’s hair has brushed the nape of the Fairy King’s neck, in what throes of passionate embrace they were locked in. “Not just blue. Some should be blue like the sky at sunset when I first see you - that deep, mysterious shade of lapis that heralds the dark.” Blaine’s tongue lingers at the top of Kurt’s spine, licking in small circles that make Kurt’s wings vibrate from pure pleasure. “Make some of them the blue at sunrise, right before we say good-bye – that light, wispy, dreamlike blue that seems so cheerful, but for us, can be so sad. Then make the rest gray, closer to silver, like the sky before a hurricane.”</p><p>“When are my eyes that color?” Kurt asks. The question comes out whispered, bordering on a gasp.</p><p>“They’re that color right now, my love,” Blaine says, the sentence drifting down Kurt’s back. “They’re the color your eyes become when you want me.” Blaine’s lips wander back up Kurt’s spine to hover around the edge of his ear. “How can I have you, my King? Tell me what I have to do.”</p><p>Kurt turns in Blaine’s arms to rest his hands on Blaine’s shoulders and gaze into his eyes. “Is it in the nature of the Great Sea King to kneel?” he teases.</p><p>“Only for you,” Blaine says, dropping to his knees, understanding what Kurt wants, what’s sometimes hard for him to say out loud.</p><p>Kurt watches Blaine lower himself for him, peeling his pants down his legs as he goes. It seems to please Blaine to do this, to make Kurt feel good. He expresses his love for Kurt this way, without saying a single word.</p><p>Kurt’s skin is pure heat when Blaine takes him into his mouth. Everything about Kurt is light and fire and power. It’s an intoxicating feeling having that in Blaine’s body, to feel that strength, knowing Kurt reserves it for him only.</p><p>As Blaine does for Kurt.</p><p>They belong to one another – powerful elementals. Together they form balance, life. If things were different, if they were enemies, the power of one could surely extinguish the other.</p><p>If they suffered the sin of vanity that their parents bequeathed to them.</p><p>But together like this, they create harmony.</p><p>With Kurt’s head thrown back, his voice singing with pleasure, the trees above him bear fruit, the flowers of the arbor his hands rest on flourish like wild, bursting in vivid shades of blue and green - and as he gets closer to climaxing, a fiery autumn red. The waters pull up to the shore and the clouds in the sky part.</p><p>“No,” Kurt begs, removing one hand from his roses to thread his fingers through Blaine’s hair. “Not yet. Not without you.”</p><p>Blaine pulls off his Fairy King and kisses around his hips. “Are you sure?”</p><p>“Yes. Please.”</p><p>“If that’s what you wish.”</p><p>“I do.” Kurt falls to wobbly knees to address his Sea King’s flushed face. “That’s all I ever want.”</p><p>No one taught them how to do this. No one told them how it was done. Kurt knew absolutely nothing about it and Blaine, he had heard talk from tactless guards around his palace. But from the moment he saw Kurt tending his fire, he’d dreamed of this, knew it could become a reality if Kurt would ever fall in love with him. They’ve made it more than a reality. It’s so much better than Blaine could have ever imagined, so much better than the ways he experimented on himself, alone in his room.</p><p>Being with Kurt like this has turned reality into a dream.</p><p>Blaine doesn’t enter Kurt. He becomes one with him. Just because Blaine leans over Kurt from behind doesn’t, in any way, put him above his Fairy King. When they make love, they’re the same person, joined together, moving as one. There are points on Kurt’s skin that Blaine swears he can feel deep inside when he touches them, places that seem like doorways from one to the other. Every stroke, every kiss, every caress is more than an act with a drive towards a goal. It’s a way for them to communicate, and not only with one another, but with the earth beneath them, the sky above.</p><p>Blaine has often said that Kurt’s moans of ecstasy trigger the sun to rise, and Kurt has many times claimed that Blaine calling out his name makes the earth beneath the sea quake. With Blaine inside him, Kurt’s skin glows pink. He becomes his own star, and the stars above them twinkle in response.</p><p>Blaine puts a hand to Kurt’s cheek and turns his face, needing to look in Kurt’s eyes when he cums. He stares with wonder at Kurt’s smiling face, his eyes shimmering in the starlight, and as much as Kurt adores it, he has to look away. Sometimes it’s just too much, the emotion that Blaine keeps in his eyes – the love, the loss, all the near misses, the things that they thought would never be. But here together on Kurt’s island, there is no loss, and their lives are forever.</p><p>When love making ends, when they collapse, still connected, and moans fade into sighs, they relax in the sand together, with Blaine’s head pressed against Kurt’s back, listening to the beat of his heart serenade him sweetly. They look up at the sky, which seems to be filled with hundreds more stars, called out of hiding, called into existence, by the love of the Sea King and his Fire Child.</p><p>“Kurt,” Blaine says, “you are, without a doubt, the greatest thing that has ever existed in my life.”</p><p>Kurt places kisses on Blaine’s fingertips and smiles. “And you, my King, are the greatest in mine.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Star Light, Star Bright</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Kurt …”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Tell me why you love me.”</p><p>Kurt peeks up from Blaine’s chest, where he’s been tracing patterns with water droplets, using his powers to push them over the dips between the planes and plateaus of Blaine’s muscles.</p><p>“Hmm,” Kurt hums, breaking through the dreamy haze he always finds himself in when he’s laid out over his lover’s body. “Did you ask me to tell you I love you, my King?”</p><p>“No,” Blaine replies, thoughtfully running gentle fingers over the veins of Kurt’s wings. “I’m curious as to <em>why</em> you love me.”</p><p>“Oh,” Kurt says, startled. It’s something they don’t often talk about, and yet it seems the constant subject of conversation, imbued in every word and every thought, every kiss and every embrace – the fact that they love one another. But as to <em>why </em>… well that hasn’t come up.</p><p>“Do you need a moment to think it over, my love?” Blaine asks, half teasing, half not.</p><p>“Of course not.” With a flap of Kurt’s wings, he flutters up Blaine’s body to gaze into his eyes – soft and gold, shimmering in the moonlight, glowing to their bioluminescent depths. To Kurt, who has yet to venture into the deep ocean, Blaine’s eyes contain all the mystery the dark waters hold, their beauty and their wonder. “I love you for everything you are, my love. You are kind, compassionate, brave, and true.” Kurt smiles bashfully at the next words tickling his tongue, words they once tossed around as a fond joke but which, every day, mean something more. “You love me …”</p><p>Blaine smiles back “… and I love you.”</p><p>“Yes. And you are fierce with your love, not just for me, but for everyone in your kingdom. You are noble in your rule, and an exceptional warrior.” Kurt brushes a lock of hair from Blaine’s forehead, twirling it around his fingers and replacing the curls carefully just so. “You are the best friend I have ever had.”</p><p>“But what about your sister?” Blaine interjects, needing to pause Kurt’s overwhelming flattery, which is filling his body, veins and all, with a rush of heat like lava.</p><p>“She’s my best friend, too, of course.” Kurt giggles, fluttering his wings when Blaine’s fingertips brush a ticklish spot – one that Blaine knows is there, and exploits as often as he can. “But she falls under a different category of best friend than you.”</p><p>“And how’s that?”</p><p>“She’s my <em>sister</em>.” Kurt rolls his eyes childishly. “I <em>have</em> to love her. I believe there’s some sort of decree. But also, I have cared for her my entire life.”</p><p>“But then, if she is your best friend, my love, and I am your best friend, how does that work?”</p><p>Kurt raises an eyebrow as if the answer to that question is so apparent, Blaine must be dense not to see it. His reaction makes Blaine chuckle since it reminds him so much of the first time he met his fiery fairy, when he was a prince and still believed that the water sprites were evil beasts bent on their extermination. “Well, she’s different from you.”</p><p>“How is she different?”</p><p>“Aside from the obvious?” Kurt’s whole body, from the tips of his toes to the edges of his wings, blushes red, his eyes darting down Blaine’s torso, lingering below his waist.</p><p>“Yes” - Blaine puts his hands to his fairy’s hips, caressing his subtle curves - “aside from the obvious.”</p><p>“Well, there are days when I can’t <em>stand</em> her,” Kurt admits with a laugh, “and yet I love her. And you …” He drags the tip of his middle finger down the bridge of Blaine’s nose, ending at his lips. Blaine leaves a kiss for him there “… there are days I love you so much, I can’t stand for us to be apart.”</p><p>“Really? What days are those?”</p><p>“Every day, my King.”</p><p>Blaine winds his arms around Kurt’s waist and pulls his Fairy King’s skin against him to heat his own. Blaine holds him, reveling in their temperature together – how his flesh makes his Fairy King cooler, and Kurt’s skin makes Blaine’s warmer, but neither does one overwhelm the other. There is no battle between their bodies. They give as much as they take, and both of them win. “And … do you ever regret, my love?”</p><p>“Regret what?” Kurt snuggles his cheek over Blaine’s heart, enjoying the feeling of equilibrium, perfection. “Regret <em>you</em>?”</p><p>“Yes, regret me,” Blaine clarifies with a sadness shadowing his tone, one that has found refuge in his head even though he knows that both he and Kurt are happier together than they have ever been apart, obstacles and all, pain and all, sacrifice and all, “and everything that happened because you met me?”</p><p>“Never,” Kurt answers quickly, too quickly in Blaine’s opinion. But that’s his own insecurity rearing. He has no doubt that that is honestly the way Kurt feels. “Not even when I was at my lowest. Not when I thought my entire world would end. Not even when I was faced with death did I ever regret you.”</p><p>Blaine lets that answer settle within him, soothe him, absolve him of the sins he committed that got them to this place of peace and love.</p><p>“Do you have any more to ask me, my King?” Kurt asks, in the hopes that Blaine will make one specific request of him.</p><p>In the hopes that Blaine will ask his King to express his love for him.</p><p>“Yes, my love.”</p><p>Kurt smiles into Blaine’s skin. “Then, by all means, ask away.”</p><p>“If you could have one thing in all the universe that you don’t already have, what would it be?”</p><p>Kurt’s breathing skips. He lifts his head slowly. His smile is not gone, but it is hidden behind a solemn mask as he casts his eyes to the sky. He gazes up at it and it’s multitude of stars - more stars than most land creatures feel have ever existed in the heavens before the days of Kurt and Blaine’s rule - and sighs.</p><p>“I would bring my Mother back,” Kurt says. “I would … I would make things right for her. I would find a way to make her see all that she should have seen. I would show her our world, and I pray that she’d be proud.”</p><p>“Oh, my love,” Blaine whispers, wiping a tear from Kurt’s cheek. “Of course she’d be proud of you. Everyone is.”</p><p>“Of you, too,” Kurt deflects with a sniffle. “Everyone under the sea, everyone here on land and in my kingdom. My Mother would be … and your Father. I think he would be proud of you, too.”</p><p>On that account, a sore one, they very much differ. Malek, the past King of the Sea, was not fond of showing pride in anything but himself, and definitely not in his son. But as Blaine feels no need to insult Kurt’s sentiment with his own stubbornness, he keeps that thought to himself.</p><p>“You know, you are far sweeter than I think you know,” Blaine says, pulling Kurt’s head down to his lips and laying kisses in the silky bed of his wavy hair, “and that’s one of the reasons why I adore you.”</p><p>“<em>One</em> of the reasons?” Kurt asks, his voice shaken but his mind content.</p><p>“Well, there are so many, my King, I tend to lose count.”</p><p> </p>
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